Over the past few cycles, we have been working towards upgrading and integrating a New Expense Submission flow into the Dashboard. We have tested and trialed our work and are ready to gather user feedback! To activate the public beta, navigate to your profile image in the top right-hand corner of the platform and find "Preview features.” Please give it a go! Once you have successfully submitted your expense, a pop-up will be displayed if you wish to provide us with feedback; otherwise, please comment below or on Discord.
First-time expense submitters
For first-time expense submitters, we’ve done a lot to increase the odds of your expenses being submitted correctly, passing the essential checks from Collectives and Fiscal Hosts, and getting paid promptly:
We haven't moved the submit expense button; this can still be found on public profile pages on the right-hand side, sometimes under actions.
A step-by-step guided process should ease you into expense submission.
Inline policy instructions from the host and collective will help understand what is possible, needed, and expected from expense submitters.
If you have not entered a legal name in your settings, you will be prompted for one here.
If there is a mismatch between your legal and display names and the payout method information, you will be alerted and guided on how to resolve the situation.
Form validation has been improved to guide you where information is missing and required.
A clear summary to confirm you entered everything correctly before submitting.
Regular expense submitters
For returning and regular expense submitters:
We haven't moved the submit expense button; this can still be found on public profile pages on the right-hand side, sometimes under actions.
The new expense submission form loads with default values based on your last and recent expense submissions. There is a good chance that the first few parts of the form (who is paying, who is getting paid, and payout method) are already populated with the information you need.
If you would like to duplicate an expense, navigate to your Personal Dashboard > Expenses, go to any expense, click on the context menu, and select “duplicate expense.” The new expense form will open and be pre-populated with information from the original expense. With a few updates, your new expense is ready for submission.
Collective & Host Admins
Collective admins can now add their own instructions to expense submitters.
Host and collective admins, please note that:
You can now create separate instructions for invoices and reimbursements (Dashboard > Settings > policies).
The instructions are included in the expense form itself.
First-time expense submitters (to both hosts and collectives) are shown the instructions in the expense form. They are required to acknowledge the instructions in order to complete the expense submission. Then, in future expenses, the instructions will be available to them should they need to refer to them, but they will be collapsed to make the form shorter and quicker.
Funds & Grants
The new expense submission form comes with a new grant submission form:
The new form is separate from the expense flow.
It has been simplified and adapted to look more like a grant request (and less like an expense).
The grant request currency is set to be the same as the grant currency. If the selected payout method is a different currency, the grant requester will see an estimate of the amount of money they will receive, with an explanation that the actual amount they receive will be determined by the exchange rates when the payout is made and any fees that may be deducted along the way.
We are considering publicly releasing the new expense submission flow towards the end of our next cycle, which is between the end of June and mid-July.
