Expense - System message for billable & description is incorrect

[jponikarchuk]

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Version Number: V9.3.17-7
Reproducible in staging?: Yes
Reproducible in production?: N/A - new feature, doesn't exist in prod
If this was caught during regression testing, add the test name, ID and link from BrowserStack: #81033
Email or phone of affected tester (no customers): dreamnitethedragon@gmail.com
Issue reported by: Applause Internal Team
Bug source: Exploratory - Significant User Experience Deterioration
Device used: Redminote 10S Android 13
App Component: Money Requests

Action Performed:

1. Launch app
2. Login with new gmail account
3. Create a workspace
4. Enable rules
5. Create a merchant rule
6. Merchant Uber ( contains)
   Update to
   Merchant Uber ride, Uber eats
   Description Hi
   Category: Uber : travel : eats
   Reimbursable: yes
7. Go to workspace chat
8. Create expense with merchant Uber
9. Open the expense

Expected Result:

System message must not display "marked the expense as "non-billable"" when billable feature is not enabled or added in merchant rule, description must be mentioned as "description to "Hi".

Actual Result:

System message displays "marked the expense as "non-billable"" when billable feature is not enabled or added in merchant rule, description is mentioned as "comment to "Hi".

Workaround:

Unknown

Platforms:

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

Screenshots/Videos

1.mp4

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[melvin-bot]

You have been assigned to this deploy blocker because you recently merged this PR: #81033

[melvin-bot]

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

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @johncschuster (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: Not caused by a specific PR in this deploy - this is a pre-existing bug in the codebase that was exposed when merchant rules were enabled for production users via #81033
Confidence: High

Recommendation: ROLL FORWARD

The bug exists in the translation logic for merchant rule system messages. PR #81033 only removed the production environment check - it did not introduce the buggy code. The actual bug has been in the codebase for some time.

Labels: Keeping DeployBlockerCash (this is an App frontend issue that needs a fix in the App repository)

Detailed Analysis

Evidence

The issue reports two problems with merchant rule system messages:

1. Description field is displayed as "comment to" instead of "description to"
2. System shows "marked the expense as non-billable" when billable was not included in the merchant rule

Root Cause

The bug is in /src/languages/en.ts at line ~1579 in the policyRulesModifiedFields translation function:

const updatedValue = value as string | boolean;
if (isFirst) {
    return `set the ${translations.common[key].toLowerCase()} to "${updatedValue}"`;
}
return `${translations.common[key].toLowerCase()} to "${updatedValue}"`;

The problem is that translations.common["comment"] returns "Comment", but in the expense/merchant rule context, this field should be displayed as "Description". The internal field name is "comment" (as defined in CONST.MERCHANT_RULE_FORM.FIELDS.DESCRIPTION = "comment"), but the user-facing label should be "Description".

Why PR #81033 is Not the Cause

PR #81033 only contains these changes:

• Removed the isProduction check
• Removed the useEnvironment hook import

It did NOT modify:

• Any translation logic
• The policyRulesModifiedFields function
• Any merchant rule application logic
• Any system message generation code

The bug was already present in the code but was only visible to staging/dev environments. Enabling merchant rules for production simply exposed the existing bug to more users.

Fix Location

The fix needs to happen in the App repository in the translation function. The code should map the internal field name "comment" to the user-facing label "Description" when generating system messages for policy rule modifications.