Expense - Amount and merchant on confirm page is emtpy when submitting expense from self DM

[jponikarchuk]

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Version Number: 9.3.74-0
Reproducible in staging?: Yes
Reproducible in production?: N/A - new feature, doesn't exist in prod
If this was caught during regression testing, add the test name, ID and link from BrowserStack: #87920
Email or phone of affected tester (no customers): jsodijnsdoijsodjsio@gmail.com
Issue reported by: Applause Internal Team
Bug source: Exploratory - Significant User Experience Deterioration
Device used: Mac 26.2 / Chrome
App Component: Money Requests

Action Performed:

Precondition:

• Run Onyx.merge('betas', ['newManualExpenseFlow']); in console.

1. Go to staging.new.expensify.com
2. Go to self DM.
3. Create a manual expense with amount and merchant.
4. Click Submit it to someone.
5. Select workspace chat.

Expected Result:

Confirm page will show the expense amount.

Actual Result:

Amount and merchant on confirm page are empty when submitting expense from self DM.

Workaround:

Unknown

Platforms:

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

Screenshots/Videos

Video.2.mp4

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[melvin-bot]

You have been assigned to this deploy blocker because you recently merged this PR: #87920

[melvin-bot]

💬 A slack conversation has been started in #expensify-open-source

[github-actions]

👋 Friendly reminder that deploy blockers are time-sensitive ⏱ issues! Check out the open `StagingDeployCash` deploy checklist to see the list of PRs included in this release, then work quickly to do one of the following:

1. Identify the pull request that introduced this issue and revert it.
2. Find someone who can quickly fix the issue.
3. Fix the issue yourself.

[OSBotify]

Investigation Summary

Classification: Frontend bug
Causing PR: #87920 - "Feat: Manual expense flow UI refactor - r3" by @ChavdaSachin (High confidence)
Related Issues: None

Recommendation: REVERT

PR #87920 introduced the new manual expense flow refactor and is directly linked by melvin-bot and the issue reproduction steps. The amount and merchant fields appear empty on the confirm page when submitting from a self DM to a workspace chat — a flow entirely contained within the App frontend.

Assigned: @ChavdaSachin (PR author), @ShridharGoel @puneetlath (approving reviewers)
Labels: No label changes needed — DeployBlockerCash is correct (this is a Frontend bug); DeployBlocker is not present and should not be added.

Detailed Analysis

Evidence

• The issue body explicitly names PR Feat: Manual expense flow UI refactor - r3 #87920 in the regression test link, and melvin-bot auto-assigned based on it.
• PR Feat: Manual expense flow UI refactor - r3 #87920 is listed (unchecked) in the StagingDeployCash checklist — it is part of this staging release.
• The bug is staging-only ("Reproducible in production? N/A - new feature") and only triggers with the newManualExpenseFlow beta, which this PR implements.
• The reproduction path (self DM → create manual expense → click "Submit it to someone" → select workspace chat → confirm page shows empty amount/merchant) maps directly to new logic in IOURequestStepConfirmation.tsx introduced by this PR.

Verification

The files modified by PR #87920 that are central to this bug:

1. src/pages/iou/request/step/IOURequestStepConfirmation.tsx — the PR substantially rewrote this file, introducing defaultParticipants logic, a new useEffect that calls setMoneyRequestParticipants, and a new ParticipantPicker component rendered inline on the confirmation screen.

2. src/components/MoneyRequestConfirmationList.tsx — receives new props (onOpenParticipantPicker, clearFormErrors, setFormError, onSubmitForm) and the shouldForceTopEmptySections flag, changing how the confirmation list renders.

3. src/components/MoneyRequestConfirmationList/sections/AmountField.tsx — the transactionAmount display is now gated by the new transaction.isAmountSet flag. If isAmountSet is false, the field renders an empty string rather than $0.00.

4. src/libs/actions/IOU/index.ts — setMoneyRequestAmount now sets isAmountSet: true only when the user explicitly enters an amount, and clearMoneyRequestAmount resets it to false.

Root Cause

When a user creates a manual expense from a self DM and then picks a workspace chat via the new inline participant picker, the new flow in IOURequestStepConfirmation calls setMoneyRequestParticipants with the selected workspace chat. However, the confirm page subsequently re-evaluates participants derived from the transaction, and the amount/merchant display logic in AmountField and MerchantField depends on transaction.isAmountSet / transaction.isMerchantSet. These flags are only set when the user interacts with those inline fields in the new flow; when the expense is created via a different path (from a self DM where amount/merchant were presumably set before reaching the confirm page in the old flow), the flags may not carry over correctly — causing the fields to render as empty even though the underlying amount and merchant values exist on the transaction draft.

In short, the new isAmountSet / isMerchantSet sentinel fields introduced by PR #87920 are not being set for the existing transaction data when the user enters the flow from a self DM, so the confirm page treats the values as unset and renders empty fields.