Expense - User appears in participant list when expense amount is negative

[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): sdsdjoijdoisnjodis@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. Open FAB > Create expense > Manual.
3. Enter negative amount.
4. Click To field.
5. Enter email.
6. Select the user.
7. Click Create expense.

Expected Result:

In Step 5, when the amount is negative, user will not appear in participant list when searched with email.

Actual Result:

In Step 5, when the amount is negative, user appears in participant list when searched with email.
In Step 7, negative expense can be submitted and the created expense does not show negative amount.

User can also enter flipped amount when participant is a user when it should not be allowed.

Workaround:

Unknown

Platforms:

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

Screenshots/Videos

Video.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 and is the direct cause of both symptoms — negative amounts being accepted for P2P expenses and the submitted expense not displaying the negative amount correctly. Reverting it removes the broken flow until a fix can be made.

Assigned: @ChavdaSachin (PR author), @ShridharGoel, @puneetlath (approving reviewers)
Labels: DeployBlockerCash kept (Frontend bug — App PR is the cause). DeployBlocker is not present and not added.

Detailed Analysis

Evidence

• The melvin-bot auto-assigned PR Feat: Manual expense flow UI refactor - r3 #87920 as the causing PR. Manual verification confirms this is correct.
• PR Feat: Manual expense flow UI refactor - r3 #87920 was merged on 2026-05-13, one day before this issue was filed on 2026-05-14.
• PR Feat: Manual expense flow UI refactor - r3 #87920 is unchecked in the current StagingDeployCash checklist (issue Deploy Checklist: New Expensify 2026-05-13 #90562), confirming it is part of the release currently on staging.
• The issue is staging-only ("Reproducible in production? N/A - new feature, doesn't exist in prod"), which matches the beta-gated newManualExpenseFlow feature introduced by this PR.
• The bug requires Onyx.merge('betas', ['newManualExpenseFlow']) to reproduce — this feature is entirely new in PR Feat: Manual expense flow UI refactor - r3 #87920.

Verification

Affected files:

• src/pages/iou/request/ParticipantSearchResults.tsx — modified in PR Feat: Manual expense flow UI refactor - r3 #87920 (confirmed via gh pr view 87920 --json files)
• src/components/MoneyRequestConfirmationList/sections/AmountField.tsx — modified in PR Feat: Manual expense flow UI refactor - r3 #87920
• src/pages/iou/request/step/IOURequestStepConfirmation.tsx — modified in PR Feat: Manual expense flow UI refactor - r3 #87920

All three files changed in PR #87920 directly relate to the reported symptoms.

Root Cause

Bug 1 — Negative amount allows P2P participants to appear in search:

shouldEnableNegative() in src/libs/ReportUtils.ts returns true whenever iouType === CONST.IOU.TYPE.CREATE (isCreatingNewIOU = true). The new manual expense flow introduced by PR #87920 uses iouType === CREATE throughout the flow, including when the ParticipantPicker is opened. The ParticipantSearchResults component's includeP2P flag is not conditioned on the current transaction amount — it is only conditioned on action type, per diem, time request, and corporate card flags. As a result, when a negative amount is entered before opening the participant picker, P2P users are still shown in search results even though negative amounts are not valid for P2P expenses.

Bug 2 — Created expense does not show negative amount:

The AmountField in the new flow uses transaction?.isAmountSet to determine whether to show the real value vs. an empty field. The sign/flip logic for negative amounts introduced in the new AmountField section (using allowNegative from shouldEnableNegative) may not be correctly persisting the signed value to transaction.amount, causing the created expense to display an incorrect (non-negative) amount.

Both bugs are in App code introduced exclusively by PR #87920. No backend changes are involved.