Edit multiple option unavailable when selecting draft (open) expense

@grgia

If you haven’t already, check out our contributing guidelines for onboarding. To join our Slack channel, fill out this form.

Version Number: 9.4.90-1
Reproducible in staging?: Yes
Reproducible in production?: Yes
If this was caught during regression testing, add the test name, ID and link from BrowserStack: #101090
Email or phone of affected tester (no customers):
Logs: https://stackoverflow.com/c/expensify/questions/4856
Expensify/Expensify Issue URL:
Issue reported by: Applause Internal Team
Slack conversation (hyperlinked to channel name):

Action Performed:

Navigate to staging.new.expensify.com
Join as new user selecting Track and budget expenses (business expense) intent
Open the workspace chat.
Create 2 expenses as 2 separate reports.
Mark one of the two expenses as done.
Go to Spend, select only the expense that is still open, and look for Edit multiple option

Expected Result:

Edit multiple option should be available when selecting open expense

Actual Result:

Edit multiple option unavailable when selecting draft (open) expense

Workaround:

Unknown

Platforms:

Select the officially supported platforms where the issue was reproduced:

Screenshots/Videos

Recording.46.mp4

View all open jobs on GitHub

Issue Owner

Current Issue Owner: @grgia

Proposal

TL;DR — this is not a product bug. The test step is wrong. Edit multiple requires 2 or more selected expenses by design. Step 6 selects one. I reproduced all three selection states on web: a single expense never offers Edit multiple, whether it is Draft or Done.

Selection on Spend › Expenses	Actions offered	`Edit multiple`?
Draft (open) expense only	Export, Merge, Split, More → (Duplicate expense, Delete)	❌
Done expense only	Export, Duplicate expense	❌
Both expenses	Edit multiple, Export, Duplicate expenses	✅

So the "Expected Result" in this issue does not match the intended behaviour, and the Draft status is not what hides the option.

What is the root cause of that problem?

canEditMultipleTransactions returns false before it looks at report status at all, whenever fewer than two transactions are selected:

src/libs/ReportUtils.ts:5256-5258

if (selectedTransactions.length < 2) {
    return false;
}

Step 6 selects exactly one row, so the guard fires and useSearchBulkActions.ts:2361-2380 never pushes the option into the menu. This is deliberate and pinned by a unit test: tests/unit/canEditMultipleTransactionsTest.ts:129-134 asserts false "when fewer than two transactions are selected".

Nothing in that function treats an open report as non-editable — "Mark as done" leaves the report at status CLOSED, which is neither approved nor settled, so both expenses pass the editability checks once two are selected. That is why the option appears at step 7 of Expensify/App#101090 (select both) and not at step 6 (select one).

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

No App code change. Fix the QA steps on Disable Reimbursable in Edit multiple when a selected expense is locked so they select two expenses, which is what that PR actually needed verified:

Select two open (Draft) expenses → open Edit multiple → confirm Reimbursable is enabled.
Swap one selection for the Done expense → open Edit multiple → confirm Reimbursable is disabled.

Then close this issue as invalid.

If the product genuinely wants single-expense bulk editing, that is a new feature request, not a regression — it contradicts the guard, its unit test, and the Edit multiple copy. Extend admin bulk edit to expenses on approved and paid reports is the right place to raise it.

Reproduction evidence (dev NewDot, web)

Onboarded a fresh user with the Track expenses for my business intent, created two expenses in the workspace chat as two separate reports, and marked one report as done.

Spend › Expenses renders one row per transaction (not per report), so isExpenseReportSearch is false and the areReportsSelected early return is not involved:

Spend > Expenses list with two transaction rows: Expense Two (Draft) and Expense One (Done)

Draft only — no Edit multiple (the More overflow contains only Duplicate expense and Delete, so it is not merely hidden behind the overflow):

Only the Draft expense selected: More dropdown shows only Duplicate expense and Delete, no Edit multiple

Done only — also no Edit multiple. This is the key data point: the issue's premise implies the Done expense behaves differently, and it does not.

Only the Done expense selected: bulk bar shows only Export and Duplicate expense, no Edit multiple

Both selected — Edit multiple appears:

Both expenses selected: bulk bar shows Edit multiple, Export, Duplicate expenses

Why the open report is not the blocker: the onboarding user is policy admin, so canEditMoneyRequest short-circuits to true, and non-restricted fields (Category, Tag, Description) return true at ReportUtils.ts:5406-5408.

History: both the < 2 guard and the areReportsSelected parameter shipped in the original Reapply "Reapply "Feat: bulk edit multiple"" (merged 2026-03-30). Neither was introduced by a recent change, so there is no regression window here.

Alternative explanations I ruled out:

Transactions on draft reports not hydrated in the Search snapshot, shrinking the list below 2 — ruled out: selectionBuilders.ts:286-321 stores the full item as transaction: item. Only empty-report rows lack it.
Spend using the expenseReport data type, tripping the areReportsSelected guard — ruled out: the Spend tab lands on type:expense per getSearchTabRoute.ts:37-38, confirmed by the transaction rows above.
Missing reportAction making every field non-editable — a real latent failure mode at ReportUtils.ts:5266-5268, but not reached here because the < 2 guard returns first.

Two unrelated smells found along the way (worth separate issues, not fixes here)

areReportsSelected is misnamed and over-broad. Every caller passes a search data type flag, not a selection fact — see useSearchBulkActions.ts:2357. On Spend › Reports, Edit multiple is suppressed wholesale even when the selection is entirely transactions.
Stale-snapshot flicker. The lastNonEmptySearchResultsRef fallback at useSearchBulkActions.ts:579 can keep an expenseReport snapshot alive while switching Reports → Expenses, transiently hiding Edit multiple until the new results land.

Related issues

Edit multiple hides the Category and Reimbursable rows after Clear cache until each expense detail is opened — open, same Edit multiple surface, different cause.
[Exploratory] Spend - For marked as done expense, edit multiple reimbursement no option not applied — open, the Done-expense Reimbursable behaviour that Expensify/App#101090 addressed.
Extend admin bulk edit to expenses on approved and paid reports — open, the place to raise any change to which selections qualify for bulk edit.

Next Steps for Contributor+ team:
To accept: @MelvinBot implement [this](https://github.com/Expensify/App/issues/101754) to create a draft PR.
To refine: @MelvinBot <your feedback>
To reject: Explain why you are rejecting Melvin's proposal.

view run · view recording

@abzokhattab

Triggered auto assignment to Contributor-plus team member for initial proposal review - @abzokhattab (External)

Unable to auto-create job on Upwork. The BZ team member should create it manually for this issue.

@suneox

this is related to this PR #101090 can you please check this out @suneox @tylerkaraszewski

@abzokhattab

@abzokhattab Whoops! This issue is 2 days overdue. Let's get this updated quick!

@suneox

this is related to this PR #101090 can you please check this out @suneox @tylerkaraszewski

This issue is not a bug because selection mode and batch editing options are only available when selecting two or more items. The test steps in the PR incorrectly specify selecting only a single expense. Therefore, I think we can close this one and update test step on PR

~~🎀 👀 🎀 C+ reviewed~~

@grgia

Triggered auto assignment to @grgia, see https://stackoverflow.com/c/expensify/questions/7972 for more details.

@izarutskaya

@izarutskaya could u please recheck

@izarutskaya could u please recheck

This is already handled by the initial implementation

@MelvinBot

@MelvinBot can you close the ticket ... the bug is not valid

@grgia

I don't have permission to close this issue. @grgia, can you close it as not planned?

suneox confirmed this is expected behavior: selection mode and bulk edit options only appear when you select two or more expenses. The earlier test steps selected a single expense.

view run

@grgia

@grgia Whoops! This issue is 2 days overdue. Let's get this updated quick!

@abzokhattab

Closing, thanks @abzokhattab

Navigation Menu

Repository navigation

Edit multiple option unavailable when selecting draft (open) expense #101754

Action Performed:

Expected Result:

Actual Result:

Workaround:

Platforms:

Screenshots/Videos

Proposal

What is the root cause of that problem?

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

Related issues

Metadata

Assignees

Labels

Type

Projects

Milestone

Relationships

Development

Edit multiple option unavailable when selecting draft (open) expense #101754

Description

Action Performed:

Expected Result:

Actual Result:

Workaround:

Platforms:

Screenshots/Videos

Activity

MelvinBot commented on Sep 21, 2026

Proposal

What is the root cause of that problem?

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

Related issues

melvin-bot commented on Sep 21, 2026

melvin-bot commented on Sep 21, 2026

abzokhattab commented on Sep 21, 2026

melvin-bot commented on Sep 24, 2026

suneox commented on Sep 25, 2026

melvin-bot commented on Sep 25, 2026

abzokhattab commented on Sep 25, 2026

suneox commented on Sep 25, 2026

abzokhattab commented on Sep 28, 2026

MelvinBot commented on Sep 28, 2026

melvin-bot commented on Sep 28, 2026

grgia commented on Sep 29, 2026

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

Labels

Type

Projects

Milestone

Relationships

Development

Issue actions