[$250] Expense - Expense can be categorized via whisper despite "Categories" being disabled.

[jponikarchuk]

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Version Number: 9.2.59-1
Reproducible in staging?: Yes
Reproducible in production?: Yes
If this was caught during regression testing, add the test name, ID and link from BrowserStack: #74389
Email or phone of affected tester (no customers): ibellicotest+2070@gmail.com
Issue reported by: Applause Internal Team
Device used: Motorola MotoG60 / Android 12 / Chrome ( mWeb / Hybrid app) - Windows 11 / Chrome
App Component: Money Requests

Action Performed:

Prerequisite: Account has at least one workspace.
Prerequisite 2: Categories enabled.

1. Open the staging.new.expensify.com website.
2. Open any workspace chat.
3. Create an uncategorized expense.
4. Open the report of the just created expense.
5. Wait until whisper to categorize expense is received.
6. Navigate to "Workspaces" and open the workspace where expense was created.
7. Tap on "Overview" and navigate to "More Features"
8. Disable "Categories"
9. Return to chat and reopen expense report.
10. Note that the category field is no longer displayed on report.
11. Note that whisper to categorize is still displayed.
12. Select any option from whisper.
13. Note that "Category" field appears again with the selected category and a "Category no longer valid" error.

Expected Result:

User shouldn´t be able to categorize an expense via whisper after the "Categories" feature is disabled. Options in whisper message shouldn´t be available anymore.

Actual Result:

After the "Categories" feature is disabled for the workspace, the user is still able to categorize the expense via whisper. "Category" field reappears after selecting an option and a "Category no longer valid" error appears.

Workaround:

Unknown

Platforms:

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

Screenshots/Videos

1.mp4

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Upwork Automation - Do Not Edit

• Upwork Job URL: https://www.upwork.com/jobs/~021991036275661102351
• Upwork Job ID: 1991036275661102351
• Last Price Increase: 2025-11-19
• Automatic offers:
• etCoderDysto | Contributor | 109581138
• abzokhattab | Contributor | 110336215

Issue Owner

Current Issue Owner: @etCoderDysto

Issue Owner

Current Issue Owner: @brianlee-expensify

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @brianlee-expensify (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.

[etCoderDysto]

Proposal

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

Expense - Expense can be categorized via whisper despite "Categories" being disabled

What is the root cause of that problem?

We are not checking if categories are enabled when we are showing ConciergeCategoryOptions reportActions

App/src/pages/home/report/ReportActionsView.tsx

Lines 220 to 226 in 69db8ad

	const visibleReportActions = useMemo(
	() =>
	reportActions.filter(
	(reportAction) =>
	(isOffline || isDeletedParentAction(reportAction) || reportAction.pendingAction !== CONST.RED_BRICK_ROAD_PENDING_ACTION.DELETE || reportAction.errors) &&
	shouldReportActionBeVisible(reportAction, reportAction.reportActionID, canPerformWriteAction) &&
	isIOUActionMatchingTransactionList(reportAction, reportTransactionIDs),

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

Inside shouldReportActionBeVisible, we should check if ConciergeCategoryOptions reportActions should be displayed by checking if categories are not enabled on policy, and if the report action type is ConciergeCategoryOptions

App/src/libs/ReportActionsUtils.ts

Lines 874 to 883 in 69db8ad

	function shouldReportActionBeVisible(reportAction: OnyxEntry<ReportAction>, key: string | number, canUserPerformWriteAction?: boolean): boolean {
	if (!reportAction) {
	return false;
	}
	if (isReportActionDeprecated(reportAction, key)) {
	return false;
	}
	// Filter out any unsupported reportAction types

1. Subscribe to the a policy associated with the report in ReportActionView using report.policyID

    const [policy] = useOnyx(`${ONYXKEYS.COLLECTION.POLICY}${report.policyID}`, {canBeMissing: true});

2. Pass policy as argument to shouldReportActionBeVisible
3. Add policy param to shouldReportActionBeVisible
4. Check if the reportAction type is ConciergeCategoryOptions and if categories are not enabled. we can use utility function to check if categories are enabled

  if (isConciergeCategoryOptions(reportAction) && !policy.areCategoriesEnabled) {
        return false;
    }

What alternative solutions did you explore? (Optional)

From BE side, we can delete the ConciergeCategoryOptions reportAction when opening the transaction thread using OpenReport API call

[melvin-bot]

Job added to Upwork: https://www.upwork.com/jobs/~021991036275661102351

[melvin-bot]

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

[akinwale]

@etCoderDysto's proposal looks good here.

🎀👀🎀 C+ reviewed.

[melvin-bot]

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