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Approve Expensify expense reports by your own rule

As an approver you open the same Needs approval list every morning, check the receipts one report at a time and click Approve on the ones that were never in doubt.

Cotlet does it in your own Expensify account with list_reports, get_report, approve_report and reject_report, called by your AI agent, an n8n workflow or a script.

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Hosted · nothing to install or maintain

Can Expensify do this on its own?

Expensify has no rule that approves a report by amount or receipt, and no API job to approve one (checked 14 Oct 2026). Its Integration Server report status updater only moves Approved reports to Reimbursed, and the official MCP server is read-only. Approval happens by hand in the app.

How you do it in Expensify today

  1. Go to Home > For you, or Spend > Expense reports > Needs approval, and click a report to open it.
  2. Review the receipt, amount and description of each expense.
  3. Click Approve at the top of the report; if some expenses are on hold, a dialog offers to approve only the non-held amount or the full amount.
  4. To send a report back, open More, select Reject, enter a comment and click Reject report.
  5. Most reports pass without a question, yet each one still needs opening, so a full week of them takes a sitting.

How to approve Expensify expense reports by your own rule

Prompt

Look at reports waiting for my approval in Acme Studio. Approve those under USD 200 where every expense has a receipt and no hold. Reject any with a missing receipt and a reason. Leave the rest for me.
  1. 01

    Read the queue

    list_reports returns the reports waiting for you in Acme Studio with total, submitter and a held flag. Anything outside your assigned approver role is not in the list, so the agent cannot touch it.

  2. 02

    Open each candidate

    get_report returns the expenses with amount, merchant, receipt flag and hold state. The agent checks the rule on the real lines, not on the report total alone, so a USD 180 report with one missing receipt does not pass.

  3. 03

    Approve the clear ones

    approve_report runs only when the total is under your limit, every expense has a receipt and none is on hold. A report with held expenses never gets the partial-approval choice; it stays for you.

  4. 04

    Reject with a reason

    reject_report sends back a report that fails on a missing receipt, with a comment naming the expense, because Expensify needs a comment to reject. The submitter sees the reason and can resubmit.

  5. 05

    Leave the judgment calls

    Over the limit, held, duplicate warnings or your own reports stay untouched, each with a one-line reason in the summary.

What you get back

Example data

Reports waiting: 9
Approved 5 (all under USD 200, receipts on every expense)
Rejected 1: Marcus Lee, Lunch USD 38.00 has no receipt
Left for you 3:
- Tomas Novak, USD 1,240.00, over limit
- Ines Ortega, USD 96.00, one expense on hold
- Priya Shah, USD 410.50, over limit

Other ways to ask

  • Approve reports from the design team under USD 500 every day at 9:00, and list everything else.
  • Show me the reports waiting for approval with their totals and receipts, but approve nothing.
  • Reject any report with a Meals expense over USD 75 and no description, and ask the submitter to add one.
  • Approve only reports where the submitter has not had a rejection this month.

What Expensify allows, and what to know first

  • Assigned approvers in the workflow can approve, hold, reject and unapprove; Workspace Admins can also bypass the workflow with More > Change approver > Bypass approvers.
  • If Prevent Self-Approval is on, an admin cannot bypass approvers to approve their own report.
  • Expensify needs a comment to reject a report, and on a multi-level workflow the approver chooses who it returns to.
  • Only an Approved report can be unapproved; Paid and Done reports cannot.
  • After the final approver approves, the report becomes Approved and is ready for payment; paying it is a separate step.

approve_report and reject_report ask for your OK by default. To run it daily without you, switch confirmation off for those tools in your dashboard.

Sources: Expensify Help: Approve expenses · Expensify Help: Understanding report statuses and actions · Expensify Integration Server: API reference

Call approve_report from a script

curl

curl -X POST https://cotlet.dev/api/v1/expensify/reports/R10077/approve \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $COTLET_API_KEY"

Example response

{
  "report_id": "R10077",
  "status": "approved",
  "approved_amount": 148.2,
  "currency": "USD",
  "next_approver": null,
  "approved_at": "2026-10-14T09:40:00+02:00"
}

MCP: add https://cotlet.dev/mcp/v1 with the same key; the call is expensify_write → approve_report. Example data.

Schedule it in n8n, Make, Zapier or cron

Expensify tools this automation uses

Cotlet Expensify tools used to approve Expensify expense reports by your own rule
Tool Parameters
list_reports workspace, status, needs_my_approval, since, limit, cursor
get_report report_id
approve_report report_id, approve_held
reject_report report_id, comment, return_to
All 14 Expensify tools with descriptions

Frequently asked questions

Can my agent approve a report I am not the approver for?

Only as far as your Expensify account can. Assigned approvers approve their reports, and Workspace Admins can bypass the workflow. The agent never uses another person's login.

Is it safe to connect Expensify to Cotlet?

Yes. You sign in to Expensify yourself, in your own Cloud Browser in the EU, and we never save your password. Your agents only get Expensify once you enable it, every background request is listed, and the browser profile is stored encrypted with AES-256-GCM, the cipher 1Password uses for its vaults. The AI model never sees a login, posts and messages wait for your OK, and Disable for agents cuts access in one click. Independent scanners grade cotlet.dev A+ on Qualys SSL Labs, securityheaders.com and Mozilla Observatory; live results are on https://cotlet.dev/security.

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