Approvals FAQ

This article has answers to the most commonly asked approval-related questions. It covers:

1. What happens if an approver submits a purchase against their own budget category?
2. How can I prevent users who are related from being able to approve each other's purchases?
3. How can I enable users to approve purchases on the budget holder's behalf?
4. How do I set up users to be secondary approvers?
5. How do I enable/disable approvals for specific categories?
6. Can a category have more than one budget approver?
7. What if an approver goes on holiday?
8. Can an approver approve their own purchases?
9. What if a purchase is edited before it's fully approved?
10. What if a purchase that has been fully approved is edited?
11. What happens to purchases in the approval process if I change my approval settings?
12. Can a person who approved a purchase also secondary approve the same purchase?
13. Do all purchase types require approval?
14. Is it possible for a purchase to not require primary approval, but still require secondary approval?
15. What if a purchase is split between multiple funds/categories?
16. How do I replace an approver who has left?

To find out more about how to customise approvals within ExpensePlus, see this separate helpguide article.

1. What happens if an approver submits a purchase against their own budget category?

When a budget holder submits a purchase against their own budget, ExpensePlus will automatically set the approver to be the backup approver if one is set.

If no backup approver is set OR the backup approver has been set as related to the submitter (see question below), then if the approval system setting 'Purchases Submitted by Category Approver' is set to one of:

• 'Approval Required by backup approver OR someone else' - the purchase will still require approval, but the approver will be set to 'not set'. Any user with permission to 'approve on other users behalf' within their user role will be able to approve his (except for the submitter user related to the submitter)
• 'Assigned to backup approver but skip if no backup category approver set' - the purchase will skip the approval step and be auto-approved

To find out more about this system setting, see this separate help guide article.

2. How can I prevent users who are related from being able to approve each other's purchases?

ExpensePlus will automatically prevent users that have been set as being related to each other from being able to approve each other's purchases.

To find out more about this system setting, see this separate help guide article.

3. How can I enable users to approve purchases on the budget holder's behalf?

By default, non-finance users who are budget approvers of one or more categories will only be able to view and approve purchases that are assigned to categories they are the approver of within the approvals screen.

Users who have been given permission within their user role to be able to approve on other users' behalf will be able to view all purchases awaiting approval within the approvals screen (finance users have this permission by default)

To find out more about this system setting, see this separate help guide article.

4. How do I set up users to be secondary approvers?

Secondary approvers are assigned within the system settings screen, just below the setting for enabling/disabling secondary approvers.

Note: secondary approvers must be added as users before they can be given permission to be secondary approvers

5. How do I enable/disable approvals for specific categories?

Within the system settings screen, within the approvals settings section, click the 'edit' button

Within the Edit approvals settings popup, change the setting for 'Approvals' to 'Enabled (set by category).

To enable/disable approvals for specific categories, go to the income & expenditure category settings screen, select the 'Fund', then within the 'Expenditure' section click on the category you wish to edit.

6. Can a category have more than one budget approver?

Within ExpensePlus, budget holders are able to view their budget expenditure in live time every time they approve purchases. Budget approval within ExpensePlus is far more than just checking money that has been spent.

Management of budgets typically works best when one person takes responsibility for managing a budget, which is why in ExpensePlus only one person can be assigned as the primary approver of each budget.

Budget holders get to see all* of the expenditure that happens within their budget (rather than just some purchases, as would happen if multiple people were budget approvers of the same budget).

If a budget approver is away or a purchase needs to be expedited through the approval process flow, then it is still possible for another user to approve on the budget approver's behalf - see the question below for more details.

(* dependent on the budget approvals settings an organisation sets)

7. What if an approver goes on holiday?

When a user is away or a purchase needs to be expedited through the approval process flow, any user that has been given permission within their user role to be able to approve on other users' behalf will be able to approve purchases on behalf of the budget holder that is away (except where either that or a related user submitted the purchase).

To find out more about this system setting, see this separate help guide article.

8. Can an approver approve their own purchases?

No, users cannot approve their own purchases. When a budget holder submits a purchase against their own budget, ExpensePlus will automatically set the approver to be the backup approver if one is set.

If no backup approver is set OR the backup approver has been set as related to the submitter (see question below), then the approval system setting 'Purchases Submitted by Category Approver' is set to one of:

• 'Approval Required by backup approver OR someone else' - the purchase will still require approval, but the approver will be set to 'not set'. Any user with permission to 'approve on other users behalf' within their user role will be able to approve his (except for the submitter user related to the submitter).
• 'Assigned to backup approver but skip if no backup category approver set' - the purchase will skip the approval step and be auto-approved (not recommended).

To find out more about this system setting, see this separate help guide article.

9. What if a purchase is edited before it's fully approved?

Where a purchase is not yet fully approved, if the purchase is edited and the budget allocation is changed (e.g. the purchase split between funds/categories is altered), the approvers of the purchase will update automatically.

Note: if the purchase is partially approved, approval will reset, and any elements of the purchase that have already been approved will need to be re-approved.

10. What if a purchase that has been fully approved is edited?

Where a purchase has been fully approved, when editing the purchase the purchase approval will not be reset, and the purchase won't require further approval.

Note: only users with the role of 'finance team' are able to edit purchases that have been fully approved

11. What happens to purchases in the approval process if I change my approval settings?

Any purchases not yet approved will automatically update when approval settings are changed. Purchases that have been fully approved will not be updated.

12. Can a person who approved a purchase also secondary approve the same purchase?

No, ExpensePlus prevents secondary approvers from secondary approving purchases where:

• they are the submitter
• they are set as being related to the submitter
• they are the primary approver of the purchase

For this reason, it is recommended that if you have secondary approval enabled, you set up 3-4 users as secondary approvers, so that you don't end up with purchases requiring secondary approval but no suitable users to provide secondary approval.

13. Do all purchase types require approval?

No, the following purchase types do not require approval by default:

• Direct debits
• Salary payments
• Bank/processing fees
• Supplier Refunds
• Expense Repayments

In addition, the following purchase types can be set as not requiring approval using the "Supplier Payments" option in Approvals Settings:

• Business Card Purchases
• Invoices to pay

To find out more about the system setting for supplier payments, see this separate help guide article.

14. Is it possible for a purchase to not require primary approval, but still require secondary approval?

This isn't possible. If a purchase doesn't require primary approval, then secondary approval is also not required and gets skipped (even if secondary approvals are enabled AND the purchase amount is above the secondary approval threshold which is set).

For split purchases, where primary approval is required for one or more budget lines, these won't skip secondary approval (unless secondary approval is disabled OR the purchase is below the secondary approval threshold).

15. What if a purchase is split between multiple funds/categories?

Where a purchase is assigned to multiple categories, approval will automatically be assigned to the relevant budget approvers of the categories selected - with each budget approver approving the elements of the purchase that relate to their budget.

Note: if secondary approval is enabled, secondary approval is done at a purchase level, with a single approval needed for the purchase (even if the purchase is split between multiple funds/categories)

16. How do I replace an approver who has left?

When you deactivate a user who is a budget approver, ExpensePlus will automatically prompt you to assign budget approval responsibilities of the categories for which this user is the approver to another user.

Note: If the user is a secondary approver, they will automatically be unset as a secondary approver when deactivated as a user.