[Due for payment 2026-07-14] Sorting an all-empty column (Posted/Approved/Withdrawal ID) reorders rows and flips between asc/desc

[MelvinBot]

Problem

Sorting an Expenses table by a column where every row is empty (e.g. Posted / Approved / Withdrawal ID) changes the row order, and ascending vs descending produce different orders.

Expected: sorting an all-empty column is a no-op — row order stays the same and is identical for both ascending and descending.

Root cause

The transaction sort adds a secondary tie-breaker that re-sorts tied rows by created, then transactionID — honoring the user's sortOrder:

App/src/libs/SearchUIUtils.ts

Lines 3975 to 3986 in 241d30f

	if (primaryComparison !== 0) {
	return primaryComparison;
	}
	// If we have a tie in the primary comparison, we add a tie breaker on date and/or transactionID as a last resort to make the sort deterministic
	const createdComparison = compareValues(a.created, b.created, sortOrder, 'created', localeCompare);
	if (createdComparison !== 0) {
	return createdComparison;
	}
	return compareValues(a.transactionID, b.transactionID, sortOrder, 'transactionID', localeCompare);

compareValues returns 0 when both values are empty, so for an all-empty column every primary comparison ties → the whole order is decided by that tie-breaker. Because it honors sortOrder, ascending orders the rows by date-ascending and descending by date-descending — hence the table reorders and flips between directions.

Why the report view is unaffected: its sort has no tie-breaker — it returns the primary compareValues directly and lets the stable Array.sort keep ties in place:

App/src/components/MoneyRequestReportView/MoneyRequestReportTransactionList.tsx

Lines 380 to 388 in 241d30f

	return compareValues(
	getTransactionSortValue(a, sortBy, report, policy, policyCategories),
	getTransactionSortValue(b, sortBy, report, policy, policyCategories),
	sortOrder,
	sortBy,
	localeCompare,
	true,
	);
	});

Introduced by: commit fac3dcefab9 "add tie breaker" in PR Expensify/App#77800 (Reimbursable/Billable columns) — added so low-cardinality (boolean) columns get a deterministic within-group order:

fac3dce

Proposed fix (FE)

Drop the sortOrder-dependent tie-breaker and return the primary comparison — the stable sort preserves ties, so an all-empty column becomes a true no-op, identical for asc/desc, and consistent with the report view.

---

Filed from this RCA comment by mukhrr on PR Expensify/App#93146.

Issue Owner

Current Issue Owner: @mallenexpensify

[trjExpensify]

@mukhrr you'll need to comment to assign you.

[mukhrr]

Commenting to be assigned cc @trjExpensify

[mukhrr]

@ahmedGaber93 PR is ready to review