Expense - App returns to merchant page after selecting a user on confirm page

[mitarachim]

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Version Number: 9.3.7-0
Reproducible in staging?: Yes
Reproducible in production?: No
If this was caught during regression testing, add the test name, ID and link from BrowserStack: #76595
Email or phone of affected tester (no customers): jsiodjosjdnisojso@gmail.com
Issue reported by: Applause Internal Team
Bug source: Pull Request QA execution
Device used: Mac 26.1 / Chrome
App Component: Money Requests

Action Performed:

Precondition:

• User has a workspace.

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

Expected Result:

App will return to confirm page.

Actual Result:

App returns to merchant page after selecting a user on confirm page.

Workaround:

Unknown

Platforms:

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

Screenshots/Videos

Bug7055984_1769121853732.1.mp4

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[melvin-bot]

You have been assigned to this deploy blocker because you recently merged this PR: #76595

[melvin-bot]

💬 A slack conversation has been started in #expensify-open-source

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @bfitzexpensify (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.

[github-actions]

👋 Friendly reminder that deploy blockers are time-sensitive ⏱ issues! Check out the open `StagingDeployCash` deploy checklist to see the list of PRs included in this release, then work quickly to do one of the following:

1. Identify the pull request that introduced this issue and revert it.
2. Find someone who can quickly fix the issue.
3. Fix the issue yourself.

[OSBotify]

🔍 Investigation Summary

Classification: Frontend bug
Causing PR: #76595 - "Update create transaction Manual flow to ask for merchant after asking for amount" by @nkdengineer (High confidence)
Related Issues: #76050

Recommendation: REVERT

This PR should be reverted immediately. The bug is caused by incorrect navigation logic that always routes to the merchant step when changing participants from the confirmation page, even when merchant is not required.

Labels: Removed DeployBlocker (this is a frontend bug, not a backend bug)

📋 Detailed Analysis

Evidence

PR #76595 modified the money request flow to ask for merchant after amount. However, the implementation introduced a critical bug in the participant selection logic when navigating from the confirmation page.

Verification

The bug occurs in /home/runner/work/App/App/src/pages/iou/request/step/IOURequestStepParticipants.tsx at lines 389-398:

if (isCategorizing) {
    ROUTES.MONEY_REQUEST_STEP_CATEGORY.getRoute(action, iouType, initialTransactionID, selectedReportID.current || reportID, iouConfirmationPageRoute);
} else {
    route = ROUTES.MONEY_REQUEST_STEP_MERCHANT.getRoute(
        action,
        iouType === CONST.IOU.TYPE.CREATE || iouType === CONST.IOU.TYPE.TRACK ? CONST.IOU.TYPE.SUBMIT : iouType,
        initialTransactionID,
        newReportID,
    );
}

Root Cause

Two bugs in this code:

1. Line 390: When isCategorizing is true, the result of getRoute() is not assigned to the route variable, so it has no effect
2. Lines 391-398: When isCategorizing is false, the code unconditionally overwrites route to navigate to the merchant step, even when merchant is not required

The flow should be:

• Line 387 correctly sets route = iouConfirmationPageRoute as the default
• When changing participants from the confirmation page (when backTo is set) and selecting a P2P chat, it should return to the confirmation page
• Instead, the else block always overwrites the route to merchant step

Expected behavior: When selecting a user (not workspace) on the confirmation page, the app should return to the confirmation page since P2P transactions do not require a merchant.

Actual behavior: The app navigates to the merchant page because line 392 unconditionally sets the route to merchant, ignoring the isMerchantRequired check calculated at line 375.