[$250] Expense - When auto-reporting is disabled, user cannot submit expense to 1:1 DM from FAB

[mitarachim]

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Version Number: 9.2.58-1
Reproducible in staging?: Yes
Reproducible in production?: Yes
If this was caught during regression testing, add the test name, ID and link from BrowserStack: https://test-management.browserstack.com/projects/2219752/test-runs/TR-1965/folder/13176730/56792088/1013856509
Email or phone of affected tester (no customers): sodnijosjoisjdoi@gmail.com
Issue reported by: Applause Internal Team
Device used: Mac 15.5 / Chrome
App Component: Money Requests

Action Performed:

Precondition:

• Turn off Submission frequency, Add approvals and Make or track payments in Workflows settings.

1. Go to staging.new.expensify.com
2. Open FAB > Create expense > Manual.
3. Enter amount > Next.
4. On confirm page, click To field.
5. Select a user (not workspace chat).
6. Click Create expense.

Expected Result:

The expense will be created in 1:1 DM.

Actual Result:

The expense is still created in workspace chat despite having selected a user on confirm page.
Error shows up on the created expense.

Workaround:

Unknown

Platforms:

• Android: App
• Android: mWeb Chrome
• iOS: App
• iOS: mWeb Safari
• iOS: mWeb Chrome
• Windows: Chrome
• MacOS: Chrome / Safari
• MacOS: Desktop

Screenshots/Videos

Bug7003093_1763062917729.9.mp4

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Upwork Automation - Do Not Edit

• Upwork Job URL: https://www.upwork.com/jobs/~021989166702492734787
• Upwork Job ID: 1989166702492734787
• Last Price Increase: 2025-12-05
• Automatic offers:
• twilight2294 | Contributor | 109740591

Issue Owner

Current Issue Owner: @

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @VictoriaExpensify (Bug), see https://stackoverflow.com/c/expensify/questions/14418 for more details. Please add this bug to a GH project, as outlined in the SO.

[VictoriaExpensify]

Yeah let's fix this

[melvin-bot]

Job added to Upwork: https://www.upwork.com/jobs/~021989166702492734787

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to Contributor-plus team member for initial proposal review - @ikevin127 (External)

[IjaazA]

Proposal

Please re-state the problem that we are trying to solve in this issue.

When auto-reporting is disabled, users cannot submit expenses to a 1:1 DM from the FAB.

What is the root cause of that problem?

The issue occurs in IOURequestStepConfirmation.tsx when creating expenses. The requestMoney and createDistanceRequest functions always use the report prop from the route parameters, which contains the workspace chat reportID. This happens even when the user selects a different participant on the confirmation page.

The flow works as follows:

1. User navigates through the expense creation flow with an initial reportID (workspace chat) in the route
2. On the confirmation page, user can change the participant by clicking the "To" field, which navigates to the participant selection page
3. When the expense is created, the code uses the original report from the route instead of determining the correct report based on the selected participant

The getMoneyRequestInformation function has logic to find or create the correct 1:1 DM chat report when parentChatReport is undefined, but we were always passing the workspace chat report, preventing this logic from running.

What changes do you think we should make in order to solve the problem?

When a user selects a 1:1 DM participant (not a policy expense chat) on the confirm page, we should pass undefined for the report parameter to requestMoney and createDistanceRequest functions. This allows the underlying getMoneyRequestInformation function to:

1. Skip using the parentChatReport (since it's undefined)
2. Call getChatByParticipants([payerAccountID, payeeAccountID]) to find the existing 1:1 DM chat
3. If not found, create a new optimistic 1:1 DM chat report

Recording_20251114_093916-2.mp4

1. In requestMoney callback: Check if the selected participant is a policy expense chat. If it is, use the workspace chat report from route (preserve existing behavior). If it's a 1:1 DM user, pass undefined for the report parameter.

2. In createDistanceRequest callback: Apply the same logic for distance requests to ensure consistency.

What alternative solutions did you explore? (Optional)

NA

[twilight2294]

Proposal

Please re-state the problem that we are trying to solve in this issue.

When auto-reporting is disabled, user cannot submit expense to 1:1 DM from FAB

What is the root cause of that problem?

In getMoneyRequestInformation in src/libs/actions/IOU.ts, when parentChatReport is provided (the workspace chat from the route), it is used without verifying it matches the selected participant. This happens because:

1. The confirmation page passes the report from the route (workspace chat) as parentChatReport
2. When a user selects a different participant on the confirm page, the participant changes but parentChatReport remains the workspace chat
3. getMoneyRequestInformation uses parentChatReport without validating it matches the selected participant
4. The expense is created in the workspace chat instead of the correct 1:1 DM

App/src/libs/actions/IOU.ts

Lines 3383 to 3385 in 70b165a

	function getMoneyRequestInformation(moneyRequestInformation: MoneyRequestInformationParams): MoneyRequestInformation {
	const {
	parentChatReport,

What changes do you think we should make in order to solve the problem?

Add validation in getMoneyRequestInformation to ensure the chatReport matches the selected participant when the participant is not a policy expense chat:

1. After getting chatReport from parentChatReport, verify participants match when the participant is not a policy expense chat
2. Compare the chatReport's participants with the expected participants (payer and payee account IDs)
3. If they don't match, set chatReport to null so the code finds/creates the correct 1:1 DM chat report via getChatByParticipants

App/src/libs/actions/IOU.ts

Lines 3441 to 3446 in 70b165a

	chatReport = allReports?.[`${ONYXKEYS.COLLECTION.REPORT}${participant.reportID}`] ?? null;
	}
	if (!chatReport) {
	chatReport = getChatByParticipants([payerAccountID, payeeAccountID]) ?? null;
	}

    // If the participant is not a policy expense chat, we need to ensure the chatReport matches the participant.
    // This can happen when submit frequency is disabled and the user selects a different participant on the confirm page.
    // We verify that the chatReport participants match the expected participants. If it's a workspace chat or
    // the participants don't match, we'll find/create the correct 1:1 DM chat report.
    if (chatReport && !isPolicyExpenseChat) {
        const parentChatReportParticipants = Object.keys(chatReport.participants ?? {}).map(Number);
        const expectedParticipants = [payerAccountID, payeeAccountID].sort();
        const sortedParentChatReportParticipants = parentChatReportParticipants.sort();

        if (!deepEqual(expectedParticipants, sortedParentChatReportParticipants)) {
            chatReport = null;
        }
    }

This ensures that when a user selects a different participant on the confirm page, the expense is created in the correct 1:1 DM instead of the workspace chat.

Screen.Recording.2025-11-14.at.10.10.58.AM.mov

What alternative solutions did you explore? (Optional)

N/A

[ikevin127]

🎉 Thanks everyone for the proposals!

@IjaazA's proposal looks good to me. The RCA is correct and the proposed solution fixes the issue.

🎀👀🎀 C+ reviewed

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