expense report stuck in pending approval" error

TL;DR

A stuck report is waiting on someone who is not acting: on leave, a deactivated account, or a delegate that was never set. Find the current approver on the report's audit trail, nudge them, and if they cannot act, have an admin reassign the approval step.

Error

expense report stuck in pending approval

Steps

1. Open the report's approval history or audit trail. Expected: it names the current approver and how long the step has been pending.
2. Check whether that approver is on leave or has left: look at their out-of-office status or ask your admin. Expected: you know why the step is stalled.
3. Nudge the approver directly with the report link and the amount awaiting them. Expected: many stuck reports clear within a day of a direct nudge.
4. If the approver cannot act, ask your expense admin to reassign the step to the approver's delegate or manager. Expected: the report moves to someone who can approve.
5. For repeat stalls, set up delegate approvers and escalation reminders in the approval policy. Expected: future reports escalate automatically instead of stalling.

When to use

• A report has been in pending approval longer than your approval SLA.
• The audit trail shows a single approver step not moving.

When not to use

• The report was rejected or returned (fix the flagged content).
• The report never submitted (check for submission validation errors).

Tool compatibility

• Expensify, Concur, Ramp, Brex, Float, and most expense tools with multi-step approval.

Variant phrasings

Report awaiting approval for weeks

Same stall, described by duration.

Approval step not progressing

The workflow-level view of the same problem.

Why it happens

Approval chains are people-dependent. Leave, turnover, and missing delegates all park a report on one step indefinitely because most systems wait passively instead of escalating.

Provenance

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_eUTzJ8Whwtna5YtiDonJgQ