[Time Tracking][Bug] Time expense can merge with cash expense, but cash expense cannot merge with time expense

[jponikarchuk]

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Version Number: 9.3.1-0
Reproducible in staging?: Yes
Reproducible in production?: Yes
If this was caught during regression testing, add the test name, ID and link from BrowserStack: #78137
Email or phone of affected tester (no customers): applausetester+sinodn23d@applause.expensifail.com
Issue reported by: Applause Internal Team
Bug source: Exploratory - Significant User Experience Deterioration
Device used: Mac 26.1 / Chrome
App Component: Money Requests

Action Performed:

Precondition:

• Log in with Expensifail account.
• Time tracking feature is enabled on OD.

1. Go to staging.new.expensify.com
2. Go to workspace chat.
3. Click + > Create expense > Time.
4. Create a time expense.
5. Create another manual expense.
6. Open expense report.
7. Open time expense.
8. Click More > Merge.
   → Cash expense appears in Merge expenses list.
9. Close all RHPs.
10. Open cash expense.
11. Click More > Merge.

Expected Result:

Since cash expense appears in the list when merging with time expense, time expense should appear in the list when merging with cash expense. Also we can do the same on OD.

Actual Result:

Cash expense appears in the list when merging with time expense, but time expense does not appear in the list when merging with cash expense.

Workaround:

Unknown

Platforms:

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

Screenshots/Videos

1.mp4

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[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @trjExpensify (Bug), see https://stackoverflow.com/c/expensify/questions/14418 for more details. Please add this bug to a GH project, as outlined in the SO.

[MobileMage]

Proposal

Please re-state the problem that we are trying to solve in this issue.

Merge eligibility is asymmetric: time expenses can see cash expenses in merge list, but cash expenses can't see time expenses. Should be consistent either way.

What is the root cause of that problem?

In src/libs/MergeTransactionUtils.ts, areTransactionsEligibleForMerge has a check for distance requests:

if (isDistanceRequest(transaction1) !== isDistanceRequest(transaction2)) {
    return false;
}

This prevents distance/non-distance merges because they have incompatible data (waypoints, routes). But there's no equivalent check for time requests, even though they also have unique data (comment.units with count/rate/unit).

The backend GetTransactionsForMerging API seems to block cash→time but not time→cash, creating the asymmetry.

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

Add a symmetric check for time requests in src/libs/MergeTransactionUtils.ts:

1. Import isTimeRequest:

import {
    // ... existing imports
    isPerDiemRequest,
    isScanning,
+   isTimeRequest,
    isTransactionPendingDelete,
} from './TransactionUtils';

2. Add check in areTransactionsEligibleForMerge after the distance check:

if (isDistanceRequest(transaction1) !== isDistanceRequest(transaction2)) {
    return false;
}

+if (isTimeRequest(transaction1) !== isTimeRequest(transaction2)) {
+    return false;
+}

Time expenses should only merge with other time expenses - the hourly rate/count data doesn't make sense to merge into a cash expense anyway.

What alternative solutions did you explore? (Optional)

Could allow merging and just drop the time data, but that would be data loss. Better to prevent incompatible merges like we do for distance requests.

[annaweber830]

Proposal

Please re-state the problem that we are trying to solve in this issue.

Since cash expense appears in the list when merging with time expense, time expense should appear in the list when merging with cash expense. Also we can do the same on OD.

What is the root cause of that problem?

The merge flow builds a list of eligibleTransactions, but then additional client-side filtering excludes transactions that belong to IOU reports. Time expenses can be associated with IOU reports, so they get filtered out when they are candidates for a cash expense, even though cash expenses aren’t filtered out when they are candidates for a time expense. This creates the one-way merge list behavior.

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

• Update the merge-candidate filtering to not exclude time expenses solely because their reportID is an IOU report.
• Ensure the underlying eligibility logic for merge candidates also treats time expenses consistently (i.e., don’t block merges just because one side is on an IOU report when the transaction is a time request).
• Keep existing incompatibility checks (e.g., distance vs non-distance) unchanged since they’re unrelated to this bug.
  

  App/src/libs/MergeTransactionUtils.ts

  Lines 406 to 408 in eafbcff

  	if (isIOUReport(transaction1?.reportID) || isIOUReport(transaction2?.reportID)) {
  	return false;
  	}

const isAnyTimeRequest = isTimeRequest(transaction1) || isTimeRequest(transaction2);
    if (!isAnyTimeRequest && (isIOUReport(transaction1?.reportID) || isIOUReport(transaction2?.reportID))) {
        return false;
    }

App/src/libs/actions/MergeTransaction.ts

Lines 121 to 125 in eafbcff

	return (
	areTransactionsEligibleForMerge(targetTransaction, transaction) &&
	!isTransactionPendingDelete(transaction) &&
	(isUnreportedExpense || (!!transaction.reportID && isMoneyRequestReportEligibleForMerge(transaction.reportID, isAdmin)))
	);

return (
            areTransactionsEligibleForMerge(targetTransaction, transaction) &&
            !isTransactionPendingDelete(transaction) &&
            (isUnreportedExpense || isTimeRequest(transaction) || (!!transaction.reportID && isMoneyRequestReportEligibleForMerge(transaction.reportID, isAdmin)))
        );

App/src/pages/TransactionMerge/MergeTransactionsListContent.tsx

Lines 63 to 69 in eafbcff

	.filter((transaction) => {
	if (isExpenseUnreported(transaction)) {
	return true;
	}
	return !isIOUReport(transaction?.reportID);
	})

.filter((transaction) => {
                if (isExpenseUnreported(transaction)) {
                    return true;
                }

                if (isTimeRequest(transaction)) {
                    return true;
                }

                return !isIOUReport(transaction?.reportID);
            })

What alternative solutions did you explore? (Optional)

[trjExpensify]

Assigning to the project team.