Stop Emailing Approvals: Building an Automated Expense System with Power Apps and Power Automate

It is a scenario that plays out in Australian businesses every single day: A field technician buys urgent supplies, snaps a photo of the receipt, and emails it to their manager. The manager, currently on site, misses the email. Two weeks later, Finance is chasing the receipt for end-of-month reconciliation. The technician has lost the physical copy, the manager is frustrated by the admin burden, and the business has zero visibility into real-time cash flow.

If your "process" relies on email threads, forwarded PDFs, and the occasional spreadsheet, you are not managing data; you are managing chaos.

At Report Simple, we see this constantly. It is a prime example of "Shadow IT" - unofficial, ad-hoc processes that sprout up to fill gaps in enterprise software. Fortunately, the solution doesn't require a six-month custom software build. By leveraging the Microsoft Power Platform, we can architect a robust, automated expense system that cuts the administrative lag time from weeks to minutes.

Here is the no-nonsense guide to how we build it.

The "Shadow IT" Problem: Why Email is Not a Database

Before we fix the system, we must diagnose the failure. Email was designed for communication, not process management. When you treat your inbox as an approval workflow, you invite significant risks:

• Lack of Audit Trails: Who approved that purchase? When? Without a structured database, tracking the history of a decision is nearly impossible.

• Version Control Issues: Is the attachment in the email the final invoice or a quote? "Final_Final_v2.pdf" is not a reliable data strategy.

• Compliance Risks: In industries like mining, construction, or logistics, failing to accurately track spend against project codes can lead to compliance breaches and budget blowouts.

• Data Silos: Data trapped in an inbox cannot be analysed. You cannot run a Power BI report on your manager’s Outlook folder.

To solve this, we move the input mechanism away from the inbox and into a structured application, and we move the logic into an automated flow.

The Solution Architecture

The beauty of the Power Platform lies in its modularity. We don't need to reinvent the wheel; we simply connect three powerful components:

1. The Interface (Front-end): Microsoft Power Apps (Canvas App).

2. The Logic (Middleware): Microsoft Power Automate.

3. The Data (Back-end): Dataverse (recommended) or SharePoint Lists.

Here is the technical breakdown of how these components interact to replace your manual email process.

1. The Canvas App: A User-Centric Interface

The entry point for the user is a Canvas App. This provides a pixel-perfect interface that can be branded to your organisation’s guidelines. Unlike rigid ERP screens, a Canvas App allows us to dictate exactly what data is captured.

For an expense system, the app enforces data integrity at the source. We configure the app to require:

• Expense Category (selected from a dropdown).

• Project Code (validated against your active projects).

• Amount and GST verification.

• Attachment Capture: The user takes a photo of the receipt directly within the app.

This is where our Power Apps consulting expertise comes into play. We design these interfaces to be intuitive enough that no training manual is required. If your staff can use a smartphone, they can submit an expense claim.

2. The Logic: Power Automate

Once the user hits "Submit" in the app, the data isn't just sat there. The submission triggers a Power Automate flow. This is the engine room of the solution.

The flow executes the following logic automatically:

1. Trigger: New item created in the database.

2. Condition Check: The flow checks the dollar value and the department.

3. Routing: If the amount is under $500, it routes to the direct line manager. If it is over $500, it routes to the Department Head.

4. Notification: The approver receives an "Adaptive Card" in Microsoft Teams or an actionable email.

Crucially, the approver does not need to open the app to approve the expense. They can click "Approve" or "Reject" directly within the Teams notification.

3. The Database: Single Source of Truth

The data, including the image of the receipt and the approval status, is stored in a structured database (Dataverse or SharePoint). This means Finance has a live view of all pending and approved expenses. It allows for immediate integration with Power BI for spend analysis, eliminating the need to manually scrape data from spreadsheets at the end of the month.

Mobile Accessibility: Empowering the Field Workforce

One of the primary reasons expense reporting fails is friction. If a field technician has to wait until they are back in the office, scan a receipt, save it to a network drive, and then email it, they will procrastinate.

By utilising Power Apps, we deploy the solution directly to the mobile devices your staff already carry.

• Offline Capabilities: Field staff often work in remote areas of Australia with spotty reception. We build offline capability into the app, allowing users to draft expenses and save photos locally. Once the device reconnects to 4G/5G, the app automatically syncs the data to the cloud.

• Native Device Integration: The app utilises the phone's camera for receipt capture and GPS for mileage tracking.

This reduces the administrative lag time significantly. An expense incurred at 9:00 AM can be submitted by 9:02 AM and approved by 9:05 AM, all without anyone opening a laptop.

Development Speed: Weeks, Not Months

Historically, building a custom mobile app for expense tracking was a six-figure investment requiring months of development. This pushed many organisations back toward the "free" (but costly) method of email and spreadsheets.

Report Simple utilises a low-code approach to disrupt this model. Because we are building on the pre-existing framework of the Microsoft ecosystem, we are not writing code from scratch. We are configuring logic.

• Rapid Prototyping: We can have a working prototype in your hands in days.

• Iterative Agile Delivery: We refine the logic based on user feedback in real-time.

• Lower Total Cost of Ownership: You are not paying for proprietary software licensing or expensive server maintenance. You are leveraging the Microsoft 365 licenses you likely already possess.

Our Power Automate consulting services focus on these rapid wins. We identify the bottlenecks in your workflow and deploy targeted automation to clear them.

Security and Governance

A common concern when moving away from email is security. "Is the data safe?"

The answer is: safer than it is in an email inbox.

When using Power Platform, your data stays within your Microsoft 365 tenant. It is governed by the same Azure Active Directory (Entra ID) security policies that protect your emails and SharePoint files. We can configure row-level security, ensuring that users can only see their own expenses, while managers can only see their team's data, and Finance can see the global view.

The Bottom Line

Continuing to rely on email for approvals is a choice to accept inefficiency. It creates friction for your staff, blindness for your finance team, and unnecessary risk for your business.

The technology to fix this is likely already available in your current software subscription. It just requires the right architecture to turn that potential into a functional, automated system.

At Report Simple, we don't just build apps; we engineer efficiency. We turn manual, error-prone tasks into streamlined, digital workflows that respect your time and your data.

Stop emailing approvals. Start automating them.