Setting Up Expense Management

Purpose

Expense Management lets employees submit expenses with a receipt, routes them for approval (by a person or by UZIO's AI checks), and pays approved amounts on the next paycheck. This article covers switching the module on, who needs which permission, the three-step setup, the mileage rate, and how reimbursement reaches payroll. Day-to-day approval is in Reviewing and Approving Expense Reports.

Who can do this: users whose role includes the Expenses > Manage Setup company-access permission. When the module is switched on, only the Employer Admin has it. Grant it to other roles in Manage Users if someone else owns expense policy.

Before you start: switching the module on

Expense Management is a paid module and is not on by default. To add it, contact UZIO Support at support@uzio.com with your company name. Until UZIO enables it, no employer or employee sees an Expenses link.

Once enabled, employees do not see their Expense link until you finish the setup below.

Permissions

Two permissions control the module. A user needs at least one of them to open Expenses at all.

When the module is enabled, the Employer Admin receives both. Every other role starts at No Access. To let Reporting Managers approve their team's expenses, give the Reporting Manager role (or a custom role) Manage Expenses: Full Access. Which employees a manager can act on follows the role's employee scope, for example Direct Reports.

The setup wizard

Open Expenses. The first time, the Welcome to Expense Management screen appears; click Start Setup. The wizard has three steps.

Step 1: Upload Policies (optional, recommended)

Upload your expense policy so the AI can check receipts against it.

Without a policy, UZIO still creates categories, but AI automatic approval cannot be switched on (see Step 3).

Step 2: Manage Categories

UZIO builds the category list for you: from the policy you uploaded (Policy Based), or a common default set if you skipped (Default). Add your own (Custom) with Add Category.

Two system categories are always present:

• Mileage pays a distance at a per-mile rate. Employees enter miles, not an amount. The list shows the active rate, for example "Mileage ($0.70 per mile)". See Mileage rate below.
• Miscellaneous catches any receipt that does not match a configured category. Miscellaneous expenses are never auto-approved; a person always reviews them.

Step 3: Approval Settings

One switch: Enable AI-based automatic approval.

• On: an expense that passes both the policy-compliance check and the fraud check is approved automatically, recorded as approved by System. Everything else waits for a person.
• Off: every expense waits for a person. The AI still reviews each receipt and attaches its remarks to help the reviewer.

The switch is disabled until a policy file has been uploaded. The screen says: "AI-assisted approval is disabled because no expense policy document was uploaded. To enable this feature, please go back and upload a policy document."

Click Finish Setup. The Expense Dashboard opens and employees now see their Expense link.

Changing settings later

Expense Setup in the left menu shows a snapshot: uploaded policies, categories, and whether AI approval is Enabled or Disabled. Click Edit Setup to re-enter the wizard and save your changes.

Mileage rate

UZIO maintains the IRS standard mileage rate for you. A scheduled job reads the rate from the IRS website on the first of each month and stores it with its effective dates, so a rate change in January applies to expenses dated in the new year while older expenses keep the old rate.

To use your own rate instead: Manage Categories > Mileage > Edit, set Use IRS Standard Rate to No, and enter a Custom Mileage Rate in dollars per mile. Your rate then applies to all mileage expenses regardless of date until you switch back to Yes.

Employees enter Distance in miles (maximum 999.99 per expense); UZIO calculates the amount.

How reimbursement reaches the paycheck

This is the part employees ask about most, so here is the exact behaviour.

1. Approval queues the money; it does not pay it. An approved expense sits in Approved until a payroll picks it up.
2. Whichever Regular or Special payroll is prepared next picks it up. When you open or refresh a Regular or Special pay run, UZIO adds every approved expense belonging to an employee in that run. There is no pay-period matching: an expense dated last month attaches to the run you prepare today. Contractor payments and adjustment runs never pick up expenses.
3. It appears as one line, "Reimbursements", non-taxable. All of that employee's approved expenses in the run are summed into a single earning named Reimbursements on the pay stub. It is not taxed, is not included in taxable wages and does not appear in any W-2 box. Mileage is included in the same total, not shown separately.
4. You cannot edit the amount on the pay grid. The cell is locked with the message "This value cannot be edited as it is automatically synced from the expense module." To change the amount, edit or delete the expense on the dashboard before you approve the payroll and refresh the run.
5. Status changes to Paid on the pay date. At 08:30 on the pay date of an approved Regular or Special payroll, UZIO marks the included expenses Paid and records the pay date as the payment date. Between payroll approval and the pay date the expense still shows under Approved.

If the employee is not on payroll. An approved expense for someone who is not in any pay run (not set up on UZIO Payroll, a 1099 Contractor, or a terminated employee with no further run) stays in Approved indefinitely. UZIO does not raise an alert and there is no manual "mark as paid". Reimburse the person outside UZIO and then Delete the expense from the dashboard so it does not attach to a later run.

If your company does not use UZIO Payroll. Expense Management still runs approvals, but nothing is paid through UZIO. Approved expenses stay in Approved; export the Approved tab to Excel for your payroll provider and delete the expenses once paid.

Notifications

UZIO sends two daily summary emails at 08:30, covering the previous day. There are no per-event emails.

These templates cannot be customised in Employee Communication.

Common problems

The AI approval switch is greyed out

No policy file has been uploaded. Go back to Upload Policies, add the policy, then return to Approval Settings.

A manager cannot see their team's expenses

The Reporting Manager role does not include Manage Expenses when the module is switched on. Grant Manage Expenses: Full Access to the Reporting Manager role or a custom role in Manage Users, with an employee scope of Direct Reports.

An approved expense never became Paid

Check, in order: the employee was in an approved Regular or Special run after the approval (open the pay run and look for the Reimbursements line); the pay date has passed (Paid is set on the morning of the pay date, not at payroll approval); the employee is on UZIO Payroll at all. See the "not on payroll" paragraph above.

The Reimbursements line on the pay grid is wrong

Edit or delete the underlying expense on the dashboard, then refresh the pay run. The grid cell itself is locked.

Web and mobile

Setup and the employer dashboard are web only. Whether employees can submit expenses from the UZIO Mobile App has not been confirmed; until it is, direct employees to the Employee Portal.

Still stuck?

Please reach out to us at support@uzio.com or call +1-571-601-1752. To enable the module, send your company name. For a payroll pick-up problem, send the employee name, the expense date and amount, the pay run and pay date you expected it in, and a screenshot of the Approved tab. Do not send receipts containing card numbers.

Related articles

• Reviewing and Approving Expense Reports
• Employee side: Submitting and Tracking Your Expenses
• Manager side: Approving Team Expense Reports
• Processing a Regular Payroll
• Running a Special Payroll
• Managing Users and Roles