When are purchases auto-approved?
In ExpensePlus you can customise how purchases are approved for your organisation.
See this article to learn more: How to customise approvals within ExpensePlus
By default, purchases won't auto-approve. Where auto-approval happens, this is typically because the approval settings were updated.
When a purchase auto-approves, the reason for auto-approval is recorded and is shown in the purchase approvals report.
Note: where there are multiple reasons for auto-approval, just the first of these is shown.
Reasons for auto-approval (primary approval)
Here are the reasons purchases can show as auto-approved, along with further information about the settings / scenarios for each.
Note: primary approval happens for each expense (so a purchase split over multiple funds/categories could have multiple approvals/auto-approval reasons).
| Auto-Approval Reason | Additional Information |
|---|---|
| approvals were disabled | At the point the purchase was ready for approval, the system setting relating to whether approval is required for any purchases was set to 'disabled'. |
| expense category does not require approval | At the point the purchase was ready for approval, the system setting relating to whether approval is required for any purchases was set to 'enabled (set by category)', and the category in question had approvals 'disabled'. |
| less than minimum amount required for approval | At the point the purchase was ready for approval, the system setting relating to 'low-value purchases' was set to 'auto-approve under a threshold' (and this purchase was lower than the threshold set). |
| purchase type does not require approval | 'Direct Debits' , 'Bank/Payment Processor Fees' and recurring 'Gift of Money' purchase types never require approval. (*regular Gifts of Money do not get auto-approved) |
| supplier payments do not require approval | At the point the purchase was ready for approval, the system setting relating to 'supplier payments' requiring approval was set to 'approval not required'. |
| salary payments do not require approval | At the point the purchase was ready for approval, the system setting relating to 'salary payments' requiring approval was set to 'approval not required'. |
| purchase was already fully approved before the allocation was split | The budget details line this relates to didn't exist at the point the purchase was approved (this was added later). |
| skipped as submitter is primary approver | At the point the purchase was ready for approval, the system setting relating to 'purchases submitted by category approver' was set to 'skip if no backup approver' (rather than requiring someone else to approve). |
| purchase was made before ExpensePlus | The purchase happened prior to using ExpensePlus but it was retrospectively imported, with receipt and approval records held outside of ExpensePlus. |
| VAT does not require approval | VAT purchase amounts never require budget approvals (only relevant for VAT registered organisations). |
| n/a | This displays where the expense shown in a report isn't a purchase, and therefore approvals are not applicable (for example category transfers, depreciation, loan interest, manual accruals, VAT recharges etc.). |
Reasons for auto-approval (secondary approval)
Here are the reasons purchases can show as auto-approved, along with further information about the settings / scenarios for each.
Note: Secondary approval happens at a purchase level. If a purchase doesn't require primary approval, then secondary approval is also skipped.
| Auto-Approval Reason | Additional Information |
|---|---|
| secondary approvals were disabled | At the point the purchase was primary approved, the system setting relating to 'secondary approval' was set to 'no secondary approval required'. |
| secondary approval amount not exceeded | At the point the purchase was primary approved, the system setting relating to 'secondary approval' was set to 'only required over a threshold' and this purchase was lower than the threshold set. |
| primary approval not required (so secondary approval also not required) | If primary purchase approval isn't required, then secondary approvals are also not required. For split purchases, this only happens where all budget lines are auto-approved. |
To help you better understand the Approvals module as a whole, please visit the module overview page here.