Expense-Navigation loop when selected a recipient, navigated back to Amount and tapped Next

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Version Number: 9.4.45-4
Reproducible in staging?: Yes
Reproducible in production?: Yes
If this was caught during regression testing, add the test name, ID and link from BrowserStack: #96485
Email or phone of affected tester (no customers): N/A
Issue reported by: Applause Internal Team
Bug source: Exploratory - Significant User Experience Deterioration
Device used: MacBook Air 26.5.2, iPhone 15 iOS 26.5.2
App Component: Money Requests

Action Performed:

1. Sign in to ND with a new gmail account, selecting "Something else" purpose (no workspaces in the account)
2. Start chat with an existing user, send a message
3. Click FAB - Create expense - Manual
4. Enter an amount and click Next
5. Select an account from Recents section
6. Click Back button two times to navigate to the Amount
7. Click Next button

Expected Result:

Step 6 - User should be navigated to the Amount screen right after clicking Back on the Confirm details
Step 7 - User should be navigated to the Confirm details page after clicking Next on the Amount page

Actual Result:

Step 6 - User is navigated to the Choose recipient screen after clicking Back on the Confirm details
Step 7 - User is navigated to the Choose recipient page after clicking Next on the Amount page second time, there is no Next button. So User can only navigate back to the Amount and forth to the Recipient

Workaround:

Unknown

Platforms:

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

Screenshots/Videos

Bug7220092_1785258545527.Web_navigation.mp4

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Applause Internal Information
Exported by: Nathan Lemma
Bug ID: 7220092

Upwork Automation - Do Not Edit

• Upwork Job URL: https://www.upwork.com/jobs/~022082183479833379285
• Upwork Job ID: 2082183479833379285
• Last Price Increase: 2026-07-28

[applause-bot]

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[MelvinBot]

Proposal

ℹ️ Note on the referenced PR: The report links #96485 as the regression source, but that PR only defers rendering of the participant selector (useDeferVisibleUntilFocusTransitionEnd / DisplayContentsView). It changes zero navigation/routing code, so it is not the cause of this loop. The behavior comes from the global-create step routing described below.

What is the root cause of that problem?

Starting an expense via FAB → Create expense → Manual launches the global create flow (iouType = CREATE, isFromGlobalCreate = true) — even when you're inside an existing chat, the chat is not treated as the recipient. This makes the flow Amount → Participants ("Choose recipient") → Confirmation, and back-navigation retraces through Participants:

• The Amount step's Next handler deliberately excludes iouType === CREATE from the "auto-assign the participant from the report and skip to Confirmation" branch, so it always routes to the Participants page.
• On Confirmation, Back checks isFromGlobalCreate && !participantsAutoAssigned. Because a recipient chosen manually in the Participants step never sets participantsAutoAssigned = true, Back routes to Participants rather than doing a plain goBack().

Net effect: Amount ↔ Participants ↔ Confirmation. Back from Confirm lands on "Choose recipient", and since the Participants page is a selector with no explicit Next button, you advance only by re-picking a recipient — which reads as an inescapable loop.

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

When a recipient is selected in the Participants step during the CREATE flow, mark the transaction so the Confirmation Back handler treats the participant as assigned (i.e. set participantsAutoAssigned / pass it on the confirmation route in goToNextStep). Then Back from Confirmation does a plain goBack() to the Participants step and, from there, back to Amount — matching the forward path and removing the "no Next button" loop. The Amount → Participants → Confirmation ordering for global create is intentional (see the code comment), so the fix is making the back path symmetric, not skipping the participants step.

Investigation details & code references

Inspected at App main @ 8277510.

• Entry point sets the global-create flags: ExpenseMenuItem.tsx:38 → MoneyRequest.ts:466-471 (isFromFloatingActionButton → isFromGlobalCreate).
• Amount Next always routes CREATE to Participants — the decisive guard: IOUAmountSubmission.ts:563 (iouType !== CONST.IOU.TYPE.CREATE), falling through to submitGlobalCreate → participants page (IOUAmountSubmission.ts:463-484).
• Participants selection advances to Confirmation without flagging the participant as assigned: useParticipantSubmission.ts:394-402.
• Confirmation Back routes to Participants when isFromGlobalCreate && !participantsAutoAssigned: IOURequestStepConfirmation.tsx:627-670.

Alternatives considered: (a) auto-assign the chat you started from as the recipient so the CREATE flow skips Participants entirely (Amount → Confirmation) — larger behavioral change and arguably not what global-create intends; (b) give the Participants page an explicit Next/continue affordance — treats the symptom, not the loop.

Confidence: High on the mechanism (deterministic client-side routing, no logs needed). The exact "correct" UX (symmetric back vs. skip participants) is a product/design call for the team.

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Next Steps for Contributor+ team:
To accept: @MelvinBot implement [this](https://github.com/Expensify/App/issues/97266) to create a draft PR.
To refine: @MelvinBot <your feedback>
To reject: Explain why you are rejecting Melvin's proposal.

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to Contributor-plus team member for initial proposal review - @truph01 (External)

[melvin-bot]

Job added to Upwork: https://www.upwork.com/jobs/~022082183479833379285

[melvin-bot]

@truph01 Whoops! This issue is 2 days overdue. Let's get this updated quick!