The Create Bill Request module lets employees submit expense claims for reimbursement — travel costs, office supplies, and other business expenses — and lets authorized users submit them on someone else’s behalf.
This module helps ensure expense claims are submitted with the right details, categorized correctly, and routed through your company’s approval process before being paid or actioned.
Related Setup and Navigation #
Before employees submit bill requests, admins should make sure the following is set up.
- Expense Category Setup
Route: Dashboard → Admin → Expense Category
Used to create the categories employees choose from when submitting a bill, such as Travel & Transportation or Office Supplies. Please check the Admin → Expense Category for a better understanding. - Currency Setup
Route: Dashboard → Admin → Currency
Used to configure which currencies are available on the bill form, and which one is the default. - Permission Setup
Route: Dashboard → Admin → Permission → Employee Permission / Team Permission
Used to assign bill-related permissions, such as creating bills for yourself or on behalf of others, editing, deleting, viewing, approving, or rejecting bill requests. Please check the Permissions Management guide for a better understanding. - Approval Flow Setup
Route: Dashboard → Admin → Approval Flows
Used to configure single-step or multi-step approval workflows for bill requests. Please check the Approval Flows (Workflow Management) for a better understanding. - Create Bill Request
Route: Dashboard → Bill → Create Bill Request
Used by employees to submit expense claims for themselves, or by permitted users to submit bills on behalf of other employees.
Who Can Use This Feature #
Subscriber Admin can create a bill request for any employee in the company, at any time, without needing any specific permission.
Employees need permission even to submit a bill request for themselves — this isn’t automatic just from being an employee. Submitting a bill on behalf of someone else requires a separate permission on top of that.
Permission Behavior #
Two permissions control who can create a bill request at all, and for whom:
- Create Bill Request (For Own)
Required action: Create
Required just to submit a bill request for yourself. Without this, the Create Bill Request option won’t appear at all — not even to submit your own expenses. - Create Bill Request (For All)
Required action: Create
Shows the Search Employee field in the Create Bill Request form, letting you pick another employee and submit the request on their behalf instead of your own. This is on top of, not instead of, Create Bill Request (For Own).
Without Create Bill Request (For All), the Search Employee field doesn’t appear, and the form can only submit a bill request for yourself (assuming you hold Create Bill Request (For Own)).
Good to know: Subscriber Admin never needs Create Bill Request (For Own) or Create Bill Request (For All) — those requirements only apply to regular employees. Either way, the employee being submitted for must be an active, licensed employee — you can’t submit a bill on behalf of someone who’s inactive or without a license.
Good to know: these creation permissions only control creating a bill (for yourself or on someone’s behalf) — they have no effect on editing or deleting one afterward. Editing and deleting a bill created on behalf of someone else are each controlled by their own separate permission (Edit Bill Request (For On Behalf), Delete Bill Request (For On Behalf)), covered later in this guide, and those only ever apply to bills you personally created — not to every employee’s bills in general.
Beyond creating a bill, several other permissions control the rest of the bill lifecycle, each covered in the section of this guide (or a related guide) where that action is explained:
- Edit Bill Request (For Own) / Edit Bill Request (For On Behalf) — see Edit Bill Request below.
- Delete Bill Request (For Own) / Delete Bill Request (For On Behalf) — see Delete Bill Request below.
- View Bill Request Details — lets someone open and view a bill’s full details.
- View All Bill Requests (Route Access) — grants access to the company-wide bill list; see the View All Bills guide.
- Approve Bill Request (For All) / Reject Bill Request (For All) — see the Approve & Reject Bill guide.
All of these permissions can be assigned directly to an employee, or to an entire team at once (so everyone on that team inherits them). See the Permissions Management guide for how to assign permissions.
Create Bill Request Form #
The form includes the following fields:
- Search Employee
Appears only for users with Create Bill Request (For All) permission (or the Subscriber Admin). Used to select another employee when creating a bill on behalf of someone else. - Title
A short, clear description of the expense. Limited to 100 characters. - Bill Amount
The total amount of the expense. Must be greater than zero, and can’t exceed 9,999,999. - Currency
Select the applicable currency, from the currencies configured under Dashboard → Admin → Currency. Defaults to your company’s default currency, but can be changed per bill. - Date of Expense
The date the expense occurred. Unlike leave requests, there’s no past/future limit here — you can pick any date. - Expense Category
Choose from the categories configured under Dashboard → Admin → Expense Category, such as Travel or Office Supplies. - Notes
Optional remarks or details about the expense. Limited to 500 characters. - Vouchers / Attachments
Upload receipts or proof of purchase — images or PDF files, up to 5 per bill. - Send Request
Submits the bill request for approval.
Tip: Admins or users with permission can create bills for other employees, making it easy to manage group or delegated expense submissions.
Approval Flow Assignment #
If your organization has an approval flow configured for bills (from Dashboard → Admin → Approval Flows), every submission follows that workflow before final approval. The applicable flow is chosen based on the employee, their team, gender, department, or designation — the same criteria used for other approval-based modules in Office-X.
If no approval flow applies to that employee, the bill request is still created and saved as Pending, but simply waits on the Subscriber Admin — no other approver can act on it until a flow is set up to cover that employee.
The step-by-step mechanics of approving/rejecting a bill work the same way as leave requests do — only the final step’s approval sets the request to Approved, a rejection at any step ends it immediately, and the Subscriber Admin can always act on whichever step is currently pending. See the Approve & Reject Bill guide for the full walkthrough.
What Happens After Submission? #
After a bill request is submitted successfully:
- The bill request status becomes Pending.
- If an approval flow applies, the first step’s approver(s) are notified (in-app and/or by email, depending on how that step is configured). If no flow applies, the Subscriber Admin is notified instead.
- The employee whose bill it is always receives a confirmation email, separately from whatever goes to approvers.
- The bill request appears in the employee’s bill request list.
Action Options (Permission-Based) #
All actions are controlled by user permissions:
Edit Bill Request #
A bill request can be edited only while its status is Pending. Approved or rejected bill requests cannot be edited.
- Subscriber Admin can edit any pending bill request in the company.
- Users with Edit Bill Request (For Own) permission can edit their own pending bill requests.
- Users with Edit Bill Request (For On Behalf) permission can edit a pending bill request only if they personally created it on that employee’s behalf in the first place — not just any employee’s bill.
When editing, you can add or remove vouchers, still capped at 5 attachments in total.
Delete Bill Request #
A bill request can be deleted only while its status is Pending. Approved or rejected bill requests cannot be deleted.
- Subscriber Admin can delete any pending bill request in the company.
- Users with Delete Bill Request (For Own) permission can delete their own pending bill requests.
- Users with Delete Bill Request (For On Behalf) permission can delete a pending bill request only if they personally created it on that employee’s behalf in the first place — same rule as editing.
Deleting a bill request also removes its uploaded vouchers and any comments (along with their attachments) on that bill.
View Bill Request #
Users with the required access can open the bill request’s details page to review the full information — bill details, vouchers/attachments, approval flow, and comments.
Comments #
Users can use comments to communicate with approvers or admins — to ask for clarification, provide additional information, or explain a decision — with up to 5 file attachments per comment.
Who can comment: the requester, the requester’s reporting manager, the Subscriber Admin, any approver named in the bill’s approval flow, or anyone holding View Bill Request Details permission.
How long you can comment: only while the bill request is still Pending. As soon as it becomes Approved or Rejected, commenting closes — comments made while it was still pending remain visible afterward.
Approved or rejected bill requests cannot be edited or deleted.
Summary #
The Create Bill Request module ensures employees can submit expense claims accurately and in accordance with company policy. Permission-based access — including the base permission just to create a bill for yourself — allows authorized users to create, edit, or delete bills for others while maintaining control, traceability, and accountability. Pending requests can be edited, deleted, or commented on based on permission, while approved and rejected requests are protected from further changes.
Note: If your organization has an approval flow configured for bills, all submissions will follow the defined workflow before final approval — see the Approve & Reject Bill guide for exactly how that works.