Expense permissions - TimeTracker

Expenses use four capabilities: expense.submit, expense.approve, expenseCategory.manage and time.viewCost. Each one answers a different question.

Capability	The question it answers
`expense.submit`	May you record and file your own expenses?
`expense.approve`	May you review other people’s expenses?
`expenseCategory.manage`	May you curate the category list?
`time.viewCost`	May you see the internal amount someone actually paid?

The role matrix

Action	Owner	Admin	Project Manager	Finance	Member	Contractor	Client
Create a draft expense	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Edit your own draft or rejected expense	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Submit your own expense	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Withdraw your own submitted expense	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Delete your own draft or rejected expense	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Upload and open a receipt	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
See the approval queue	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Approve an expense	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Reject an expense	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Withdraw an approval	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
See the raw amount on someone else’s expense	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
Add, rename or archive a category	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	No
Build a workspace-wide Expenses report	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Put an approved billable expense on an invoice	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No

The capabilities in detail

`expense.submit`

Held by every working role: Owner, Admin, Project Manager, Finance, Member and Contractor. Not held by Client. It covers your own expenses only:

create a draft
edit a draft or rejected expense
submit for approval
withdraw a submitted expense back to draft
delete a draft or rejected expense
upload a receipt, and open a receipt

The breadth mirrors time.submit. Anyone who does client work can spend money on it, so anyone who does client work can file an expense.

Holding expense.submit does not let you touch anyone else’s expense. Every edit, withdraw and delete re-checks that you are the submitter.

`expense.approve`

Held by Owner, Admin, Project Manager and Finance. This is the review tier. It covers:

seeing the Approvals → Expenses queue and history
approving a submitted expense
rejecting a submitted expense with a reason
withdrawing an approval you gave
building a workspace-wide Expenses report

That last one matters. expense.approve is the workspace-wide “see expenses that are not mine” capability. expense.submit is deliberately not enough to build an Expenses report – if it were, any Member could aggregate the whole company’s spend. Approve and Reject additionally need the Pro plan. Withdrawing an approval does not.

`expenseCategory.manage`

Held by Owner, Admin and Finance. Project Manager is deliberately excluded. Categories are a finance taxonomy, not a delivery one. A PM approves expenses and manages budgets but does not shape the chart of accounts. It covers:

opening Settings → Expense categories
adding a category
renaming a category
archiving and restoring a category

There is no inline-create path. The expense form only offers the managed active list, so every category change – including the very first one – needs this capability.

`time.viewCost`

Held by Owner and Admin only. It is not an expense capability as such. It is the cost firewall that decides whether you see the raw amount and markup % on someone else’s expense.

You are looking at	You see the billable value	You see the raw amount
Your own expense	Yes	Yes, always
Someone else’s, as Owner or Admin	Yes	Yes
Someone else’s, as Project Manager or Finance	Yes	No

This is the same firewall that hides cost rates from a Project Manager. See cost rates. The firewall also applies in reports. The Expense cost measure requires time.viewCost; the Billable value and Expenses count measures do not.

Example

Northwind Studio, with all seven roles in play.

Person	Role	What they can do with expenses
Maya Ellis	Owner	Everything. Files her own, approves anyone’s, sees every raw amount, manages categories.
Tom Whitfield	Admin	The same, except deleting the workspace itself.
Priya Raman	Project Manager	Files her own and approves the team’s. Sees `$276.00` billable but never the `$240.00` Sarah paid. Cannot touch the category list.
Daniel Okafor	Finance	Files his own, approves the team’s, owns the category list. Also sees only the billable value on other people’s expenses.
Sarah Lin	Member	Files, edits, withdraws and deletes her own expenses. Sees her own amounts in full. No queue, no reports on others.
Jonas Bergman	Member	Same as Sarah.
Ana Ferreira	Contractor	Same as Sarah. Contractor is narrower elsewhere, but not for expenses.
Ruth Castillo	Client	Nothing. A portal contact holds no internal capabilities.

App and plan gates

Capabilities are only one of three gates. All three must pass.

Is the app on?

Expenses must be switched on in Settings → Apps. Off means hidden entirely – the sidebar item is gone and the URL is blocked. Expenses requires the Projects & tasks app.

Do you hold the capability?

Your role, plus any custom role or per-person override your workspace has set.

Does your plan include it?

Recording an expense is free. Approving one needs Pro.

Gate	Off means
App switched off	Hidden. No sidebar item, no route.
Capability missing	The control is hidden or the page shows a no-access panel.
Plan does not include it	The control stays visible with a Pro badge and opens an upgrade dialog.

Never confuse “turned off” with “not on your plan”. See apps and modules and plans and features.

Custom roles and per-person overrides

Your workspace can define custom roles with a different capability set, and can deny specific capabilities to individual people. Two rules to keep in mind:

A capability is not a scope. expense.approve says you may review expenses. Supervision scope decides whose expenses route to you. Both have to pass. See supervision scope.
Not every capability is freely movable. Some are owner-exclusive and some are deny-only. Check the role editor before assuming a capability can be granted to any role.

Common questions

Can a Member see the whole team's expenses?

No. The Expenses page is pinned to the person viewing it. Workspace-wide visibility needs expense.approve.

Why does Finance manage categories but Project Manager does not?

Categories are how spend is classified for the books. That is a finance concern. A PM’s expense authority is reviewing amounts on their projects, not shaping the taxonomy.

Can a Project Manager ever see what we actually paid?

Only on their own expenses. Seeing another person’s raw amount needs time.viewCost, which is Owner and Admin only.

Can a Contractor submit expenses?

Yes. Contractor is the narrowest staff role, but it holds expense.submit in full.

Can a client portal contact see expenses?

No. A Client role holds an empty internal capability set. A portal contact only sees what is explicitly shared with their client company.

Do I need Pro to submit an expense?

No. Recording is free on every plan, forever. Only approving is Pro.

Troubleshooting

Problem	Cause and fix
Expenses is missing from the sidebar	The app is switched off in Settings → Apps.
The Expenses tab is missing from Approvals	You lack `expense.approve`.
Settings → Expense categories shows a no-access panel	You lack `expenseCategory.manage`. Project Manager does not hold it.
Forbidden: expense.submit	Your role or a per-person override does not allow submitting expenses.
Forbidden: expense.approve	You are not on the review tier.
Approve shows a Pro badge	Your plan does not include `approvals`.
You see a billable value but no amount	Working as designed. You lack `time.viewCost`.
The Expenses report source is not offered	It requires `expense.approve`.

Roles and capabilities

The full permission model.

Approve an expense

The reviewer surface these capabilities unlock.

Expense categories

Managed by the money tier only.

Cost rates

The same cost firewall on people.

Apps and modules

The app gate that sits above every capability.

Plans and features

Why approving is Pro and recording is free.

​The role matrix

​The capabilities in detail

​expense.submit

​expense.approve

​expenseCategory.manage

​time.viewCost

​Example

​App and plan gates

​Custom roles and per-person overrides

​Common questions

​Troubleshooting

​Related guides

Roles and capabilities

Approve an expense

Expense categories

Cost rates

Apps and modules

Plans and features

The role matrix

The capabilities in detail

`expense.submit`

`expense.approve`

`expenseCategory.manage`

`time.viewCost`

Example

App and plan gates

Custom roles and per-person overrides

Common questions

Troubleshooting

Related guides