[Due for payment 2026-05-07] “Move to Report” Deletes Expense Instead of Triggering Report Creation Flow for Users Without Workspaces

[m-natarajan]

If you haven’t already, check out our contributing guidelines for onboarding and email contributors@expensify.com to request to join our Slack channel!

---

Version Number: 9.3.62-5
Reproducible in staging?: Y
Reproducible in production?: N (Move to report option not available)
If this was caught during regression testing, add the test name, ID and link from BrowserStack:
Email or phone of affected tester (no customers):
Logs: https://stackoverflow.com/c/expensify/questions/4856
Expensify/Expensify Issue URL:
Issue reported by: @shawnborton
Slack conversation (hyperlinked to channel name): #Expensify Bugs

Action Performed:

1. Log in with an account that has no workspaces
2. Create an unreported expense
3. Navigate to Spend
4. Select the expense
5. Click “Move to report”

Expected Result:

User should be able to move the expense to a report
If no workspace/report exists:
The app should trigger the upgrade flow

Actual Result:

The expense is deleted
No report is created
No upgrade flow is triggered

Workaround:

Unknown

Platforms:

Select the officially supported platforms where the issue was reproduced:

• Android: App
• Android: mWeb Chrome
• iOS: App
• iOS: mWeb Safari
• iOS: mWeb Chrome
• Windows: Chrome
• MacOS: Chrome / Safari

Screenshots/Videos

Recording.2757.mp4

View all open jobs on GitHub

Issue Owner

Current Issue Owner: @mallenexpensify

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @marcochavezf (DeployBlockerCash), see https://stackoverflowteams.com/c/expensify/questions/9980/ for more details.

[melvin-bot]

💬 A slack conversation has been started in #expensify-open-source

[github-actions]

👋 Friendly reminder that deploy blockers are time-sensitive ⏱ issues! Check out the open `StagingDeployCash` deploy checklist to see the list of PRs included in this release, then work quickly to do one of the following:

1. Identify the pull request that introduced this issue and revert it.
2. Find someone who can quickly fix the issue.
3. Fix the issue yourself.

[MelvinBot]

Proposal

What is the root cause of that problem?

When a user with no workspaces clicks "Move to report" from the Spend page (bulk action path), SearchTransactionsChangeReport does not check for the zero-workspace case before proceeding. usePolicyForMovingExpenses returns {policyForMovingExpensesID: undefined, shouldSelectPolicy: false} when there are no valid workspaces. Because shouldSelectPolicy is false, the createReport function falls through directly to handleCreateReport(), which calls createNewReport with an undefined policy — creating a broken optimistic report and optimistically moving the transaction to it. The transaction disappears from the unreported view (appears "deleted") because its reportID is changed from UNREPORTED_REPORT_ID to the broken optimistic report ID. The server rejects the command, but from the user's perspective the expense is gone.

By contrast, MoneyRequestHeaderSecondaryActions (the individual expense view) correctly handles this case by computing shouldNavigateToUpgradePath = !policyForMovingExpenses && !shouldSelectPolicy and redirecting to the upgrade page when true. SearchTransactionsChangeReport is missing this equivalent check.

What changes do you think we should make in order to solve the problem?

Add the same upgrade-path guard to SearchTransactionsChangeReport.tsx. In the createReport function, before falling through to handleCreateReport(), check if !policyForMovingExpenses && !shouldSelectPolicy. If true, navigate to ROUTES.MONEY_REQUEST_UPGRADE with upgradePath: CONST.UPGRADE_PATHS.REPORTS instead of creating a broken report with no policy.

This mirrors the existing pattern in MoneyRequestHeaderSecondaryActions.tsx:484-494.

What alternative solutions did you explore? (Optional)

An alternative would be to hide the "Move to report" / "Create report" button entirely when no workspace exists, but this would provide a worse UX than guiding the user to upgrade. The upgrade flow already exists and works correctly in the individual expense view — reusing the same pattern is the most consistent approach.

---

Next Steps for Contributor+ team: Reply with @MelvinBot implement this to create a draft PR, @MelvinBot <your feedback> to refine this analysis, or explain why you are rejecting Melvin's proposal.

[OSBotify]

🔍 Investigation Summary

Classification: Frontend bug
Causing PR: Likely #86517 - "Remove Onyx.connect() usage for ONYXKEYS.COLLECTION.POLICY_TAGS from changeTransactionsReport()" by @truph01 (Low confidence) — or this may be a pre-existing gap exposed by recent changes
Related Issues: None identified

Recommendation: NEEDS INVESTIGATION

The root cause is clear but the specific PR that introduced the regression could not be identified with high confidence. The fix is in the App repo (SearchTransactionsChangeReport.tsx), so the DeployBlockerCash label is correct. The issue author and PR author should be tagged for more context.

Assigned: @truph01 (most recent PR author touching SearchTransactionsChangeReport.tsx), @shubham1206agra (approving reviewer)
Labels: DeployBlockerCash retained — this is a Frontend bug. No label changes made.

📋 Detailed Analysis

Evidence

The bug reproduces only on staging (v9.3.62-5) and not production. The affected code path is:

1. User with no workspaces navigates to the Spend tab (unreported expenses)
2. Selects an unreported expense and clicks "Move to report"
3. This triggers useSearchBulkActions.ts → Navigation.navigate(ROUTES.MOVE_TRANSACTIONS_SEARCH_RHP.getRoute()) → SearchTransactionsChangeReport
4. Since user has no workspaces, outstandingReports = [] and the "Create report" button is shown
5. User clicks "Create report"
6. createReport() in SearchTransactionsChangeReport.tsx is called

The bug is inside SearchTransactionsChangeReport.tsx's createReport function. When policyForMovingExpensesID is undefined (user has no workspaces) and shouldSelectPolicy is false, the function falls through to handleCreateReport(), which calls createReportForPolicy with policyForMovingExpenses = undefined.

This causes:

• createNewReport() to be called with policy = undefined, creating an optimistic report without a workspace (no policyID)
• changeTransactionsReport() to be called with newReport = optimistic report and policy = undefined
• The transaction's reportID is optimistically updated to the new orphan report ID
• The expense disappears from the Spend tab (which only shows UNREPORTED_REPORT_ID transactions)
• The API call CREATE_APP_REPORT with no policyID likely fails silently or creates a broken state

Expected behavior: The app should navigate to the upgrade flow (e.g., ROUTES.NEW_REPORT_WORKSPACE_SELECTION or ROUTES.MONEY_REQUEST_STEP_UPGRADE with upgradePath = CONST.UPGRADE_PATHS.REPORTS).

Note: IOURequestEditReport.tsx (which handles the same scenario from a different entry point) has an early return guard: if (!hasPerDiemTransactions && !policyForMovingExpensesID && !shouldSelectPolicy) { return; } — but SearchTransactionsChangeReport.tsx lacks this guard and instead calls handleCreateReport() directly.

Verification

• Affected files: src/pages/Search/SearchTransactionsChangeReport.tsx
• Also relevant: src/hooks/usePolicyForMovingExpenses.ts (returns {policyForMovingExpensesID: undefined, shouldSelectPolicy: false} when user has no workspaces)
• PR #86517 is confirmed to have modified SearchTransactionsChangeReport.tsx as part of a refactoring — possible that the refactor inadvertently removed or failed to carry over a guard.
• The fix does NOT require reverting a PR — a targeted fix adding the no-workspace guard (navigate to upgrade flow) in SearchTransactionsChangeReport.tsx would resolve the issue.

Root Cause

In src/pages/Search/SearchTransactionsChangeReport.tsx, the createReport() function does not handle the case where the user has no workspaces (policyForMovingExpensesID === undefined && shouldSelectPolicy === false). It should navigate to ROUTES.NEW_REPORT_WORKSPACE_SELECTION.getRoute(true) or the upgrade flow, but instead it calls handleCreateReport() which invokes createNewReport() with policy = undefined and then calls changeTransactionsReport() — moving the expense to an orphaned report with no workspace. The transaction disappears from the Spend view and there is no recovery path shown to the user.