Can users approve their own purchases?

Users can't approve their own purchases in ExpensePlus. This is still the case even if they have been given permission to approve on other's behalf or they are a Finance Team user.

Setting up backup approvers provides an accountable and managed option for when the submitter is the primary approver. Therefore, we recommend that you ensure that 'backup approvers' are set for each fund's expenditure categories (see the section later in this support article for how to do this).

If no backup approver is set for a category and the purchase submitter is the primary approver, the purchase will either:

• Await approval by other approvers
• OR auto-approved

Which of these is the case is determined by how you set up approvals for your organisation, and how you have set the 'Purchases submitted by category approver' setting.

How approval works when a 'backup approver' is set:

• Purchases will go to the primary approver of the category they are assigned against.
• If the submitter of that purchase is also the primary approver, the purchase will automatically be assigned to the backup approver of the category instead.

Setting a backup category approver

Backup category approvers are set in the category settings screen.

Click on the expenditure category and select a backup approver from the drop down menu.

To help you better understand the Approvals module as a whole, please visit the module overview page here.