What's new in Expense Agent: Overview (2026 release wave 2)

Overview

This 15-minute overview covers what is new in the Expense Agent for the 2026 release wave 2. It lists a refreshed web app, six added languages (Czech, Dutch, Icelandic, Italian, Norwegian, Swedish), and worldwide availability that starts in October and expands country by country over the following months.

The main functional areas are mileage handling, credit card feeds, AI-driven travel policy checks in approvals, travel requests that create expense reports, a new mobile app, VAT reclaim and withholding tax for employees. Several areas are described only briefly and the speaker points to separate sessions for details. Timing differs per feature: credit card feeds come later than October, approvals and travel requests roll out gradually from October to December, and the mobile app is in preview.

Key points

• Mileage allowances can be set per period, so the correct rate is applied from the expense date, and per vehicle type (car, truck, SUV, motorcycle) combined with date ranges. A simple setup without periods remains possible.
• Credit card feeds are not available in October. They are announced for December (stated as 2029.2) as the first release, with manual upload of credit card statements.
• Credit card records are reconciled automatically with existing expenses if receipts were scanned first. Otherwise expenses are created from the card records and the user must attach receipts before submitting.
• AI-driven travel policy compliance must be enabled in setup and incurs additional AI costs. Policies are human-readable text. Flagged expenses do not block approval, and approvers can approve non-compliant ones.
• Approvals gain interim approvers, approval limits, delegate approvals and a more detailed approval history. Travel requests, when approved, create an expense report and assign the trip’s receipts to it. These come gradually from October to December.
• The new mobile app (iPhone and Android) crops receipts automatically and works offline. It is in preview, for testing only.
• VAT reclaim must be enabled in agent setup and is tracked per expense line. VAT is only identified from receipts of the user’s home country, accountants must review and confirm it, and some countries do not allow VAT reclaim through expense reports. Withholding tax for employees needs posting groups assigned to employees and expense categories.

Features

A status with a roadmap link comes from the Microsoft 365 roadmap feature this part of the video covers (matched by Haiku; links Opus dropped are not used); other statuses need a status word in the video itself.

Quotes

• 0:20 “we’ll start with improved mileage handling. Then we will finally have enabled credit card feeds.”
• 1:38 “it will be gradually enablement but it will be really fast starting from october”
• 3:29 “it will not be available from October, it will be available from December, so 2029.2.”
• 5:17 “when you start setup, you need to enable policy compliance. And why you need to do that? Because it can make additional cost of”
• 6:49 “this is not hard limitation. Approver can approve even if this is flagged, even if this is not 100% compliant.”
• 7:39 “it will come gradually from October to December, but all these features will be in next 2 months.”
• 8:57 “this is available right now in a preview. So, only for testing, but this is this is available.”
• 10:17 “claiming VAT is a little bit more complex. In some countries, this is based on the uh on specific um authorities’ rules, you cannot”
• 11:07 “system will use only for your country. So, if this is uh receipt abroad, system will not use a VAT”

Disclaimers in the video

• 1:28 coming-later: worldwide availability enablement will be gradual starting from October, not all countries available immediately
• 3:29 coming-later: credit card feeds will not be available from October, it will be available from December, so 2029.2
• 5:17 subject-to-change: AI-driven policy compliance enables additional cost of using AI, so you need to confirm you want to use it
• 7:39 coming-later: approval improvements and travel request features will come gradually from October to December
• 8:57 preview: new mobile app is available right now in a preview for testing only

Presenters (as heard): Unknown Presenter.