> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.smartbills.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Claiming Less Than an Expense
> Claim part of an expense, and understand the amount an approver signs off
## Overview
The amount you claim does not have to equal the amount on the receipt. A dinner where a colleague's guest joined, a hotel bill covering a personal extra night, a shared taxi: in each case the receipt total is right but the reimbursable portion is smaller.
Smartbills separates the two figures. Each expense on a report carries a **claimed amount** alongside the expense total.
## Claim a partial amount
Go to the draft expense report containing the expense.
Set the claimed amount on the expense line to the portion you are claiming.
Add a note on the line. An amount lower than the receipt without an explanation invites a change request, which costs you more time than writing the note.
The report totals the claimed amounts, not the receipt totals.
The claimed amount cannot exceed the expense total. Attempting it is rejected. To claim more than a receipt shows, the receipt is wrong and the expense itself needs correcting.
## What the approver can do
An approver works with a separate figure, the **approved amount**, and can approve less than you claimed. The approval view breaks a report down into four buckets:
| Bucket | Meaning |
| ------------------- | ---------------------------- |
| **Approved** | Signed off for reimbursement |
| **Refused** | Denied |
| **Pending Changes** | Sent back to you to fix |
| **Pending** | Not yet decided |
An approver reducing an amount is expected to leave a note explaining it, which appears alongside the expense when the report comes back to you.
Setting an approved amount to zero is blocked, with the message "Setting amount to 0 will deny this expense. Use the Deny button instead." A denial is recorded as a decision with a reason. A zero-value approval would look like an approval and pay nothing, which is why it is not permitted.
Approvers can also override the report total directly, and can edit amounts across the report where the situation calls for it.
## Mileage claims
Mileage behaves slightly differently, because its value depends on your year-to-date distance.
The claimed amount is **locked when the report is submitted**. The computed total continues to reflect the rate tier that applies now. If a later trip pushed you past an annual threshold, those two numbers diverge.
When they differ, Smartbills shows both and explains: "The claimed amount was locked when the report was submitted; the computed total reflects the current year-to-date rate tier." The claimed amount is what gets reimbursed.
This protects both sides. An approver signs off a figure that cannot change underneath them, and you are not retroactively penalised for distance driven after you submitted. See [Add mileage to an expense report](/guides/web-app/mileage/add-to-expense-report).
## Reading the totals
A report shows the sum of claimed amounts, the sum of approved amounts once decisions are made, and the reimbursement total. These agree only when everything was approved in full, so a gap between claimed and approved is the fastest way to spot that something was reduced or denied.
## Related
Send your claim for approval
Fix a report sent back to you
The approver's side