Help Center / Getting Started

Navigating Light as an Employee

What this page is about: how to find your way around Light once you're logged in, including your sidebar, search, notifications, settings, and what's available on mobile versus the Light app.

Once you're logged in, Light is easy to get around. This quick tour shows you where everything lives so you can find it fast.

On this page

  • Your sidebar
  • Search, notifications and settings
  • Mobile access
  • Next steps
  • Related articles
  • Also searched as

Your sidebar

Light's sidebar sits on the left of the screen, under a Personal header, and covers four sections.

Home (/dashboard)

Your home page gives you an at-a-glance summary: pending tasks and your card accounts. If your permissions allow it, you also see company-wide widgets, such as account balances and top vendors by spend.

Tasks (/user-tasks)

Your to-do list. It shows expenses waiting for your review (if you manage people), purchase requests that need your approval, and any other action items assigned to you. Click a task to open it.

Expenses (/expenses)

Every expense you've submitted lives here, along with its status (Submitted, Approved, Processing, or Paid), amount, and category. You can submit new expenses from this page and track reimbursements too.

Cards (/user-cards)

If your company issued you a Light card, manage it here: view card details, check your balance, review transaction history, freeze or unfreeze the card, and update card settings.

Search, notifications and settings

These three live at the bottom of the left sidebar, not in a top bar.

Search. Press Cmd+K (Windows: Ctrl+K) to open Light's command launcher. It searches navigation items, settings, and business records such as customers, vendors, and accounts. It doesn't search help articles and doesn't search by date. To find a help article, use the separate Help button, which opens help.light.inc.

Notifications. Click the bell icon to see updates on your submitted items, for example when an expense is approved or a reimbursement moves to processing. Click it again to see your notification history.

Settings. Click the company logo at the top of the sidebar to open the account menu. It gives you two options: Settings and Log out. Your profile details live inside Settings, there's no separate profile menu item.

Mobile access

Open Light in your phone's browser to submit an expense, including a quick receipt photo. On mobile web, only Expenses is available. Home, Tasks, and Cards don't show up in the mobile browser, so approving requests and managing your card need the Light app instead.

Get the Light app

For full access on your phone:

  1. Download the Light app.

  2. Open the Light app and sign in with your company credentials, email and password, or single sign-on (SSO/SAML) if your company has it enabled through your identity provider.

  3. From the Light app, capture receipts, submit expenses, check your card, and approve requests from anywhere.

See Mobile Receipt Capture for a full walkthrough.

Next steps

New to Light? Go to Setting Up Your Profile to add your banking details. Ready to submit your first expense? Jump to Submitting an Expense for Reimbursement.

Also searched as: Light sidebar, Light dashboard, Light employee login, Light expenses page, Light cards page, Light search shortcut (Cmd+K), Light settings menu, Light app download, Light mobile app.

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