Admins are automatically delegated as Co-Pilots

Julia

As an admin, I think it's really important that we should automatically have some of the same capabilities as Co-Pilots built in.
Many of my users need additional help, and I also need additional insight into what they're seeing on their end.
Having automatic Co-Pilot access for a designated 'super-admin' at a policy level would be extremely beneficial.
Everything still has an audit trail, so it's easy to see who may have made a change.

Daveweez

Agree

Aussiebandit

Agree

TravisW

Agree

Andrea_00

Agree

Keller3b

Totally agree.

Aussiebandit

@Julia - I have been told by my Expensify Account Manager that it doesn't look like Expensify would run with this idea. Too bigger a risk from there point of view. They have comprised by allowing Policy Admins to do this:

https://docs.expensify.com/using-expensify-day-to-day/using-expensify-as-an-expense-submitter/report-actions-create-submit-and-close#for-admins-view-edit-and-submit-employees-open-reports

Julia

Thanks for the update @Aussiebandit . I think the change they made is progress, but they really need to make a push for more features for admins.

Everything has a very strong audit trail, and I can't wrap my head around why they wouldn't do this.

The only risk is the banking info, but personally I don't think a co pilot should have ANY access to remove or add banking information. It is helpful to at least be able to see it though, because I have been able to help people work through some issues by seeing simple mistakes like entering the routing number twice as the account number as well.

tylerzoll

@Aussiebandit Thanks for the update. I also agree with @Julia. I would really think that there would be a way that this could be done better. For now, I really do think it's a best practice to be added as a wingman when you set up a new account for a new employee.

Sheena Trepanier

This is an interesting idea, thanks for sharing guys.

Given the use case where an employee is a member of multiple policies for different companies, such as a contract worker, automatically adding the policy admin as a copilot has the potential to grant unwanted access to expenses from other companies.

This use case isn't really common in Expensify, but it's common enough that it is a serious consideration when discussing automatically granting access into any user's account.

This is a really good example of why we've never granted automatic account access to any admin of any company. That being said we're open to exploring ideas around this, so I'll make sure to highlight this thread with my team.

jazfun

I'm so sorry but this is another layer of confusion. Why would we have - Domain managers, admins & co pilots? I have clients that I have the domain manager, I'm on their account and unless they add me as a copilot I can't help them with managing their expenses. I believe that Expensify lives in its own world of complication. The basic business owner does not want 3 -5 sets of permissions that they have to perform just to give their accountant / bookkeeper / office manager - access to in order to have them help with controlling an expense.
This is mediocre in terms of layers of security. Please as an admin let us choose or not to choose the layers of control we can have automatically as a Co-Pilot. - One login set the permissions and GO.. Not to try to negotiate 3 different areas of a program that is NOT intuititve as well as trying to get our clients to do this for us.. INSANE.. One control area with all of the options to allow or disallow permissions is all that is needed. Not to confuse our clients and make them dislike your software off the bat.

Julia

bump

Mark11215

Agree with Julia. Admins should be able to get into a user's account and see what they're having issues with, help them out, see issues firsthand. We use other systems for other reasons where that functionality exists. For example, in Concur Travel, a policy admin can "act on another's behalf" and see exactly what they're seeing. Of course, it would be great if any such admin actions landed in the audit trail and were recorded, but I'd love the feature even if that weren't possible.

Julia

Expensify-
Imagine having to help us as users on account specific issues without having access to actually load our accounts and see what we're seeing.

This is EXACTLY what it feels like when I'm trying to help my users with an issue they're having. Usually I get a voicemail or an email, or if they're on the phone they're not by a computer (you can't add a Co-pilot on the app, it has to be on the web based version), and I'm working backwards. I'm losing precious time to help them get their issue resolved quickly and easily, by having to dig in with a bunch of different questions, or painstakingly walk them through how to add me as a Co-Pilot (What do you see, what tab are you on, what does it say, navigate to the little blue person icon, click the tiny little arrow that appears after you hover over that general vicinity, keep scrolling, did you uncheck your filters, are you on the wrong tab, etc)

I challenge you to have any of your employees that are in a customer support role to NOT use the technology that enables you to look at what your customers are seeing or exactly how they have their settings set up. Try it for a day. Have it so your customers must first allow you all to have Co-Pilot access (and have fun walking them through it), or share snippets and print screens.

I think only then will you truly understand why I am so passionate about this topic. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE add this to your road map.

SAOSBR

Can we have the permissions to have admins add co-pilots so that we don't have to beg the client's employees to do this first for us as their CPA? I am unable to go help the employee's find expenses that were deleted and things like that because i'm not a co-pilot so i'd like the ability to co-pilot myself.

Rachael Hopkins

Thanks @SAOSBR , the rub here is that the individual is the account holder and the company only owns the Policies. An Admin can already see all expenses on the Policy.

Users can use Expensify outside of their company policy to manage their private expenses and also in the case of contractors, expenses for other businesses.

Even with Domain Control, the account still belongs to the user, and if they're removed from Domain Control the account remains with the user against their secondary email address.

I wonder if it would be a better alternative to be able to request Co-Pilot access from within the Expensify software, so they the user just needs to click a button to grant it?

kjowe

Also useful for consultants who work with multiple clients needing Expensify help.

RI_8806

Bump - we really need a solution here. I see both sides, but there has to be something we can do. Admins are blind without co-pilot access. Perhaps you need to step back and rethink the individual account and how it's set up or how it could be reorganized so that we aren't seeing personal credit cards, or unrelated companies. There's got to be a way that Expensify knows what accounts/companies the Admin is tied to, and give automatic access to view those things only.

JenRoto

The company should own the user account, if they are using it for their business only, and admins should be able to see all actions in the user's account. Perhaps you can provide this full function in a different license model, so that, contractors can use the current model, and companies who need oversight for just their own company and their users can have this functionality. It creates unnecessary work for users, as well as admins when admins cannot have full access to help resolve issues. For instance, Expensify sometimes doesn't merge credit card feed with submitted receipts and we have cash and card expenses for the same expense...admin should be able to change the cash expense, so that it can merge with the cc one. I don't want our Principals to have to do more work because Expensify cannot merge properly (7-eleven is on receipt, but card is 7-Eleven, all other data same but yet it doesn't merge because of lower case letter).

Julia

@jphillips I saw your other idea post. Mind giving mine an upvote? I have been asking for this forever! We have almost 500 employees, so I'm sure you can imagine my pain since you're experiencing your own struggles with just 42.

jphillips

Agree with Julia. This is definitely needed!

Julia

bump since everyone else is always suggesting this

DDBpdx

I have used many other expense reporting applications, usually built into project management software, and all of them allowed admins the ability to make changes on their users reports. This is a major pain point with Expensify.

Sonia Liapounova

@DDBpdx What kind of changes are you looking to make? With the current set up you, as a Policy Admin, can make changes on a submitter's report in any state (Open, Processing, Approved, Reimbursed, Closed).

JenRoto

Yes, but you cannot change expenses in another's profile without being a delegate which makes more work. For instance, Expensify sometimes doesn't merge credit card feed with submitted receipts and we have cash and card expenses for the same expense...admin should be able to change the cash expense, so that it can merge with the cc one. I don't want our Principals to have to do more work because Expensify cannot merge properly (7-eleven is on receipt, but card is 7-Eleven, all other data same but yet it doesn't merge because of lower case letter). Also, when an employee leaves, they should not be able to take their account with them under the company's domain email.

Mark Louis

Hi @JenRoto - thank you for the additional context. To clarify, since everyone can also use Expensify to manage their individual expenses, when a user is removed from the company Domain, their individual account remains with them using their secondary email address (not the address associated with your domain).

JenRoto

thanks, that's good to know. However, that was a minor point in this thread. The main issue is that the Admin needs to have control over expenses within the domain user, to help facilitate expenses.

Rachael Hopkins

+6 votes from this Idea.

Rachael Hopkins

+4 votes from this Idea.

Rachael Hopkins

+14 votes from this Idea.

Daveweez

@Rachael Hopkins make sure to actually increase the number of votes. If not, how will the count actually work.

+313 votes

did that work??