How to review duplicate reimbursement receipts before payout

Duplicate reimbursement receipts are easy to miss when people submit expenses through email, chat, folders, and forms. A renamed file can look new even when the receipt is old.

Compare the receipt, not the filename

Filename checks are weak. Compare invoice number, merchant, date, amount, currency, and a normalized receipt fingerprint when available. The strongest warning usually comes from several fields matching at once.

Watch screenshots

Screenshots are common in reimbursement workflows. A person may upload a PDF once, then submit a phone screenshot later. The file looks different, but the receipt details match.

Keep a decision trail

When a row is marked duplicate, keep it visible with the accepted original. Finance can then explain why a claim was excluded without searching through old messages.

Review before export

The clean export should include accepted rows only. Duplicate and needs-review rows should stay in the workspace until someone resolves them.