Deep Dive - Duplicate Detection: What is it and how it works!

Matt Moore

Duplicate detection is functionality built into every Expensify account. It works behind the scenes to identify duplicate expenses before they are submitted, warning employees when they exist. 

If a duplicate expense is submitted, the same warning will be shown to the approver responsible for reviewing the report. 

Some helpful tips...

If two expenses are SmartScanned on the same day for the same amount, they will be flagged as duplicate unless:

1. The expenses were split from a single expense, 
2. The expenses were imported from a credit card, or
3. Matching email receipts sent to [email protected] were received with different timestamps. 

If Concierge lets you know it's flagged a receipt as a duplicate, scanning the receipt again will trigger the same duplicate flagging. 

But maybe I needed that receipt, Concierge!

If you do need to recover this receipt, not to worry - you have the ability to undelete it! To undelete an expense: 

1. Log into your web account and navigate to the Expenses page 
2. Use the filters to search for deleted expenses by selecting the "Deleted" filter 
3. Select the checkbox next to the expenses you want to restore 
4. Click the Undelete button and you're all set.

Expensify users have the ability to resolve duplicates by either deleting the duplicated transactions, merging them, or ignoring them (if they are legitimately separate expenses of the same date and amount).  

Related articles

• FAQ: Will Duplicate Detection flag the same receipt, even if I accidentally SmartScan it a year later?
• FAQ: Why does Concierge keep deleting my receipts, they aren't duplicates!

Matt Allen

@Matt Moore do you know how dupe detection works cross policy or cross domain, if at all?

Matt Moore

Hey @Matt Allen!

We only scan for dupes in the user's account right now. If a company was seeing duplicates across policy/domain members then that, to me, would suggest they were reporting expense in a suboptimal way (for example importing a card statement to two user accounts). Best practice would be that an expense is always associated with one user.

Lemme know if there's a use case we should be covering though, and we can turn it into an Idea post.