Approvals

Approvals put a sign-off step in front of posting. A document that needs approval is still saved — it is parked, not rejected — and its effects on stock and the ledger are held back until someone approves it.

Where

Setups → Approvals

Plan

Growth and above

Permission

Organization → Approval Setup

What gets approved

Approval is available on around thirty document types, and which ones you can use depends on your plan:

• Growth — the trading documents: purchase orders, goods receipts and issues, returns, sales, stock counts, adjustments, transfers, receipts and requests.
• Professional — the financial ones: customer and supplier invoices, payments and credit notes, expenses, income, bank deposits, withdrawals and reconciliations, budgets, journal entries, landed costs, fixed assets and opening balances.
• Enterprise — intercompany transfers, kit assembly, production output, material consumption and scrap records.

Setting up a rule takes two screens

Nothing in the app links them, and configuring one without the other is the usual first-time mistake.

• Document Approval Policies decide when approval is needed.
• Approval Setups decide who approves, and in what order.

How to say when approval is needed

1. Go to Setups → Approvals → Document Approval Policies.
2. Click New record.
3. Choose the Document Type.
4. Choose the Mode, then click Save:

Mode	Approval needed
None	Never.
Always	Every time.
Above Threshold	Only above the Threshold Amount you then enter.
Customer Credit Limit	Every time — see the warning below.

“Customer Credit Limit” does not check any credit limit

Despite its name, this mode never looks at the customer’s limit or their balance. It behaves exactly like Always, sending every matching document for approval.

If you want a value-based approval, use Above Threshold.

A customer’s credit limit is enforced, but separately and without any approval setup: a credit sale that would take the customer past their limit is refused at the till. See credit limits.

How to say who approves

1. Go to Setups → Approvals → Approval Setups.
2. Click New record, give it a Name, choose the Entity Type, and pick the Originators whose documents need approval. Save.
3. Click the row to open it.
4. Click Add Level.
5. Set the Level number, the Number of Approvers who must sign off, and pick the Approvers.
6. Turn on Sequential if they must act one after another. Save.
7. Repeat for level 2, 3 and so on.

Leave the approver list empty and any eligible approver can act.

How to cover for someone on leave

Go to Setups → Approvals → Approval Delegations → New Delegation, set From User, To User, Valid From and Valid To, and turn on Active.

If a workflow ends up with nobody to approve, the Fallback approver setting under the Approval group catches it.

What happens when a document needs approval

The document saves with the status pending approval, and its stock movement and ledger posting are deferred — not skipped. They run later, in full, the moment the last approver approves.

While it waits:

• it cannot be edited;
• it cannot be submitted again into a second approval request;
• it still appears in lists and can be opened and read.

Approvers on the current level only are notified — in the app, by push and by email. Later levels hear nothing until the level before them clears.

If someone is set as out of office, their active delegates are included as eligible approvers automatically.

How to approve something waiting on you

1. Go to Setups → Approvals → Approval Decisions — or click Approvals awaiting you on the Home screen, under Needs your attention.
2. Click the row to open the request. You will see who raised it, what it is, and the Approval Levels with each approver’s decision and comments.
3. Click Approve, Reject or Cancel Request.
4. Add a Comment. It is optional for an approval but required for a rejection.
5. Confirm.

Rejecting destroys the document

A rejection does not send the document back for editing — it voids or cancels it outright. The originator has to start again from scratch.

If the document only needs a correction, talk to them and let them cancel it themselves.

There is no badge on the Approvals menu

The only count anywhere is the Needs your attention row on Home. If you rely on the sidebar you will not notice new requests. You are also emailed and sent an in-app notification when something needs you.

Where approvals appear

Approvers work from Approval Decisions, which shows what is waiting on them. Both approving and rejecting accept a comment.

On final approval the deferred work runs: stock moves, the ledger posts, and the originator is notified. Some documents do something extra at this point — an approved purchase order, for example, goes out to the supplier.

On rejection the whole request is rejected, and the document is voided or cancelled in the same operation. It does not return to draft for editing, so a rejected document is started again rather than corrected.

Where to look

Screen	Shows
Approval Decisions	Waiting on you
Approval Requests (Mine)	Raised by you
Approval Lists	Everything
Approval Setups	Who approves what
Document Approval Policies	When approval is required
Approval Delegations	Out-of-office cover

There is also an Approval Bottlenecks dashboard, under Dashboards, for finding where things are piling up. It is gated separately, on reporting.dashboard.approval_bottlenecks.

Related

• Documents and how they connect — what posting does
• Plans and what they unlock