fix: prevent submitter from editing expenses after workflow forwardsTo becomes submitsTo

[nabi-ebrahimi]

Explanation of Change

This change keeps forwarded expense reports locked down, even if the workspace approval workflow is later edited to make the current manager look like the first-level approver again.

Previously, submitters could regain edit access because we only checked the live policy workflow against the report’s current manager. That missed the historical fact that the report had already been forwarded after submission. Now we also look at the report’s action history: if it was forwarded after the most recent submission, we treat it as past first-level approval and prevent submitters from editing the report policy or expense details.

This protects the approval flow from being accidentally reopened by later policy changes, while still allowing normal edits before a report has actually moved forward in approval.

Fixed Issues

$ #89012
PROPOSAL: #89012 (comment)

Tests

Preconditions:

Create the following accounts:

• Workspace Owner
• User A (Submitter)
• User B (First Approver)
• User C (Second Approver)

1. Log in as the Workspace Owner.

2. Create a new Control Workspace.

3. Invite User A, User B, and User C to the workspace.

4. Navigate to Workflows and click Add Approval Workflow.

5. Configure the approval workflow:

   • Set User A as the Submitter
   • Set User B as the First Approver
   • Set User C as the Second Approver

6. Log in as User A (Submitter).

7. Create and submit an expense report.

8. Log in as User B and approve the expense report.

9. Log back in as User A and open the submitted expense report.

10. Verify that the expense report is not editable.

11. Log in as the Workspace Owner.

12. Update the approval workflow:

    • Set User C as the First Approver
    • Set the Workspace Owner as the Second Approver

13. Log back in as User A and open the expense report again.

14. Verify that the expense report remains not editable after the workflow update.

• Verify that no errors appear in the JS console

Offline tests

Same as Tests.

QA Steps

Same as Tests.

// TODO: These must be filled out, or the issue title must include "[No QA]."

• Verify that no errors appear in the JS console

PR Author Checklist

• I linked the correct issue in the ### Fixed Issues section above
• I wrote clear testing steps that cover the changes made in this PR
  • I added steps for local testing in the Tests section
  • I added steps for the expected offline behavior in the Offline steps section
  • I added steps for Staging and/or Production testing in the QA steps section
  • I added steps to cover failure scenarios (i.e. verify an input displays the correct error message if the entered data is not correct)
  • I turned off my network connection and tested it while offline to ensure it matches the expected behavior (i.e. verify the default avatar icon is displayed if app is offline)
  • I tested this PR with a High Traffic account against the staging or production API to ensure there are no regressions (e.g. long loading states that impact usability).
• I included screenshots or videos for tests on all platforms
• I ran the tests on all platforms & verified they passed on:
  • Android: Native
  • Android: mWeb Chrome
  • iOS: Native
  • iOS: mWeb Safari
  • MacOS: Chrome / Safari
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  • I verified any copy / text shown in the product is localized by adding it to src/languages/* files and using the translation method
    • If any non-english text was added/modified, I used JaimeGPT to get English > Spanish translation. I then posted it in #expensify-open-source and it was approved by an internal Expensify engineer. Link to Slack message:
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• If the PR modifies code that runs when editing or sending messages, I tested and verified there is no unexpected behavior for all supported markdown - URLs, single line code, code blocks, quotes, headings, bold, strikethrough, and italic.
• If the PR modifies a generic component, I tested and verified that those changes do not break usages of that component in the rest of the App (i.e. if a shared library or component like Avatar is modified, I verified that Avatar is working as expected in all cases)
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• If the PR modifies a component or page that can be accessed by a direct deeplink, I verified that the code functions as expected when the deeplink is used - from a logged in and logged out account.
• If the PR modifies the UI (e.g. new buttons, new UI components, changing the padding/spacing/sizing, moving components, etc) or modifies the form input styles:
  • I verified that all the inputs inside a form are aligned with each other.
  • I added Design label and/or tagged @Expensify/design so the design team can review the changes.
• If a new page is added, I verified it's using the ScrollView component to make it scrollable when more elements are added to the page.
• I added unit tests for any new feature or bug fix in this PR to help automatically prevent regressions in this user flow.
• If the main branch was merged into this PR after a review, I tested again and verified the outcome was still expected according to the Test steps.

Screenshots/Videos

Android: Native

Recording_20260512_165245.mp4

Android: mWeb Chrome

Recording_20260512_165857.mp4

iOS: Native

Screen.Recording.2026-05-12.at.5.05.39.PM.mov

iOS: mWeb Safari

Screen.Recording.2026-05-12.at.5.08.38.PM.mov

MacOS: Chrome / Safari

Screen.Recording.2026-05-12.at.4.36.14.PM.mov

[codecov]

Codecov Report

✅ Changes either increased or maintained existing code coverage, great job!

Files with missing lines	Coverage Δ
src/libs/ReportActionsUtils.ts	76.47% <ø> (ø)
src/libs/ReportUtils.ts	83.53% <88.88%> (+0.02%)	⬆️
... and 9 files with indirect coverage changes

[melvin-bot]

@FitseTLT Please copy/paste the Reviewer Checklist from here into a new comment on this PR and complete it. If you have the K2 extension, you can simply click: [this button]

[nabi-ebrahimi]

Hi @FitseTLT,

The PR is ready for review. Thank you!