What is itemization?

Itemization is the process of creating a detailed list where each item is listed individually. Mesh users can use the itemization feature to split a single expense into multiple sub-expenses.

Why is it needed? 

Consider a hotel folio that includes room charges, minibar snacks and breakfast. The traveler a gets a single receipt that displays a mix of business and personal charges, or charges that belong to different people, departments, or cost categories. Without itemization, users would need to:

• Manually explain or justify the breakdown.
  
• Submit multiple expenses for a single receipt.
  
• Risk compliance or categorization errors.

With the option to itemize, the process consumes less time, processed accurately, reduces errors and becomes easier for finance teams to manage and audit.

What happens during the itemization?

• Users split a parent expense into sub-expenses based on the receipt’s line items.
  
• Each sub-expense can be independently, assigned to a different user, tagged with a specific spend category, or mark as personal .
• The original parent expense is replaced by its sub-expenses with a link to the parent.
  
• The parent record retains a reference to all sub-expenses and displays their statuses.
  

Who can itemize and when? 

Any Mesh profile can itemize. Strong users (e.g., Admin) can itemize for other users. Users can itemize submitted expenses in status 'In review' or 'Pending'.

How to itemize an expense as a user with an Employee profile?

1. Log into the Mesh platfrom as a user with an Employee profile.

2. Navigate to the 'Expenses' page.

3. Click an expense with a multi-line item receipt and in status 'In review' or 'Pending'. 

4. Click the 3-dots on the upper right part and then 'Itemize expense'.

5. Allow the AI to extract the receipt details and present the results (i.e., line items). If items are missing details use step 6 to correct the entires otherwise, skip to step 7. 

6. Click the pencil of a line item to introduce changes. 

6.1 Change the owner, date, amount, budget, spend category, memo, and relevant expense tags.

6.2 Turn the personal toggle on if the line item is a personal spend. 

6.3 Click 'Save' to store the changes. 

6.4 You can click the '+Add item' to add a line item. 

6.5 Make sure that the itemized amount matches the total amount on your receipt and that the 'Remaining' balance is 0. 

7. Click Submit and then the 'Itemize expenses' button. 

Notes:

• The AI itemization service requires a receipt but it is possible to itemize manually. If a receipt is missing the user interface will present the message 'Unable to itemize the receipt by AI' and provide the option to 'Itemize manually'.
• Strong users (e.g., users an an Admin profile) can itemize on behalf of other users. 
• The expense may be trip-related, non-trip related, a result of a charge on an external card (e.g., AMEX) or a Mesh card that is subject to post approval. 
• The expense approval flow supports a condition that determines whether to route an expense to a review branch based on whether it is marked as personal.