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Delete an unused draft expense

Expenses provides a real delete operation for DRAFT records. This differs from Employee's close-only HR records and Charity's retained draft cancellation. Do not use deletion as a financial reversal.

Before deleting​

Confirm the correct tenant, expense ID and DRAFT state, deletion authority and owning-unit access. Review why the draft is unneeded and whether any related financial evidence exists after an unusual state change. DRAFT alone is not a substitute for checking known workflow limitations.

Procedure​

  1. Open expense detail and read date, description, User, amount and Paid By.
  2. Confirm the draft is the intended duplicate/error and record any necessary internal request reference outside the deleted record.
  3. Choose Delete.
  4. Read the confirmation and confirm only the exact intended deletion.
  5. Verify the return to the register and absence of that draft under appropriate filters.

Example: Farah accidentally creates the same unposted travel draft twice. After independently verifying the duplicate and no financial effects, she deletes the unwanted DRAFT. A posted reimbursement cannot use that procedure.

Limits and recovery​

Non-DRAFT deletion is rejected. There is no ordinary expense CANCELLED state or undo-delete screen documented here. A rejected approval is still an approval decision, not automatic deletion.

Do not reset a journal or manipulate an expense status back to DRAFT simply to make Delete available. Journal/payment resets are not a coordinated expense rollback and can leave retained financial relationships.

If the response is lost, search/reopen the exact original ID before another action. If deletion fails because of related records or state change, preserve the evidence and ask finance/support to inspect it. Recreating a new record without establishing the old outcome can duplicate spending.

The documentation performs no live deletion. Approval and retention requirements for real records remain the organisation's responsibility; this chapter describes the current application's supported draft operation.