Expense Reports in budget exception still staged for payment

Hello,

We've configured our system to NOT require budget checking prior to approval in order to expedite the process and given that most of our expense claims are low dollar. However, we've noticed that Expense Reports in budget exception are still staged by the Expense Processing app engine. Is this correct? I would have anticipated it would work the same as Payables where vouchers can only be selected for payment once the budget status is Valid. Can you confirm this is working as designed and if so, is there a workaround?

Thanks,

Jason