Expenses & approvals
How does an expense go from receipt to approved?
By the Mylo team · Last updated July 1, 2026
Short answer
Every receipt becomes a draft expense, you submit it, an approver approves or denies it, and approved expenses are exported to QuickBooks. A denied expense goes back to draft with a reason so you can fix and resubmit.
The lifecycle is deliberately simple and one-directional: draft, submitted, approved, exported. A receipt captured any way, scanned, emailed, pulled from a store account, becomes a draft expense first. That draft is your private working copy: you can edit the category, description and payment method before anyone else sees it, because an accountant or approver does not see a draft until you submit it.
Once you submit, the expense enters the approval queue, where an approver either signs off or denies it. A denied expense does not vanish: it returns to draft carrying the reviewer's required reason, which stays attached to the record even after you fix it and it is later approved. That is what gives you a clean audit trail, since the history of why something bounced is never lost.
Approved is the gate for the books. Only approved expenses can be exported to QuickBooks, which keeps unreviewed spend out of your accounting. When an expense is exported it flips to an exported state so it cannot be sent twice, closing the loop from receipt to accounting.
How it works in Mylo
- The lifecycle is draft, submitted, approved, exported, with a denied path that returns to draft.
- Drafts are private to you; an accountant does not see them until you submit.
- Submitting sends the expense to the approval queue for an approver to review.
- A denied expense returns to draft with a required reason so you can fix and resubmit.
- The denial reason stays attached to the record for the audit trail, even after a later approval.
- Only approved expenses can be exported, and exporting flips them to an exported state.
Best practices
- Check the category and payment method on a draft before submitting.
- Group related expenses into a report (a trip or project) so they are reviewed together.
- Read any denial reason carefully so you can fix and resubmit in one pass.