Approval policies vary from company to company. Follow below steps to understand how an approval policy is set up and adapt them based on your company's requirements. You can find some examples of policies that are supported by Request here.
You must be Admin to view and manage approval policies.
Need approvals from different departments? Use tags to sort payables by department and set up tag-based approval rules.
Important: always add an initial approval step (with no conditions) to assign a team member. They’ll add the right tag, which then routes the payable to the right department approvers.
How it works
These steps will show how to set up an approval policy which includes:
a general review by the Finance team,
department-specific step(s),
a compliance step to validate a payment method,
and a CFO review for payables with large amounts.
1. Add a name and select the payable type(s)
To set up a policy, navigate to the Approval Policies menu in Settings and click on Add New Approval Policy
Next, you're asked to provide a name and select for which payable types you'd like the approval policy to apply:
Bills: ensures the approval policy will be applied to payables under Payments > Bills
Direct Payments: ensures the approval policy will be applied to payables under Payments > Direct Payments
2. Add a general Finance Review
Click Continue to add your first approval step:
Add the "Name" of the step: This name will also show up in approval timeline
Add a "Condition" (optional): Conditions can be applied based on specific parameters of the payable. If skipped, then this step will always apply
Select the "Approvers": You can select one or multiple approvers per step. Any team member with the role "Approver", "Finance Manager" and "Admin" can be selected (→ What roles are available?)
Select the "Required Approvals": To complete the approval step, select how many of the approvers must give their approvals
This policy uses tags to trigger department-specific approval steps, e.g., bills tagged "Marketing" go to the Marketing department. To prevent untagged bills from being auto-approved, a "Finance Review" step comes first to assign the correct tags.
Let's recap above example approval step:
the step is called the "Finance Review"
it'll always apply, as no condition is selected
there are two possible Approvers, "Joe Bloggs" and "Joe Smith"
at least one of the two must approve for this step to be completed.
Click Add to add this first step.
3. Add a Department-specific Review
Next, we'll add a department-specific step, starting with the Marketing team. Click on +Add a step to add another step to the policy.
Now, we want to make sure that the step only applies if the bill is related to Marketing. To achieve this, we'll use tags as a condition of the step:
Name: "Marketing Review"
Condition: apply this step if the bill's tag(s) include the "Marketing" tag
Select the relevant approvers (e.g. the Head of Marketing) and how many approvals are required
For any payable that does not meet the conditions of your approval step, the approval step will be skipped automatically.
Let's recap above example approval step:
the step is called the "Marketing Review"
it'll only apply to bills with tag "Marketing"
there's one required approver, "Alice Bund"
Click Add to add the department-specific step.
4. Add additional Department-specific Review
Just as above, you can add additional department-specific steps, using conditions based on tags;
Use one (or multiple) tags per department on bills
Select those tags in your approval steps
Approval steps will be skipped if they don't apply (e.g. a bill that doesn't have the "Marketing" tag won't require the Marketing Review approval step)
Your approval policy could look as below. For example, in practice, a bill with tag "Marketing" will trigger the following approval steps before being approved:
Finance Review
Marketing Review
5. Add a Compliance Review
Your company may require a compliance review prior to paying out cryptocurrency to wallets or bank accounts. This type of requirement can also be achieved through an approval step based on tags, just as above;
Use one (or multiple) tags on bills requiring a compliance review
Select those compliance-related tags in your compliance-related approval step
The approval step will be skipped if there's no compliance-related tag
6. Add a CFO Review
Finally, for larger payables, e.g. payments ≥ $1,000, your company may require approval from management, e.g. the CFO. Click +Add a step to add another step to the policy.
Set up the step:
Name: "CFO Review"
Condition: apply this step if the bill's amount is ≥ $1,000
Select the relevant approvers (e.g. the CFO) and how many approvals are required
Let's recap above example approval step:
the step is called the "CFO Review"
it'll only apply to bills with amount over or equal to (≥) $1,000
there's one required approver, "Bob Zauber"
Click Add to add the CFO Review step.
7. Activate policy
Finally, click Activate Policy to put the policy into effect. It'll apply immediately to any payable which isn't yet approved (→ What happens if I create or edit an approval policy?)
8. Start approving payables
Once the policy is activated, it'll come into effect immediately. You can learn more about how the approval policy looks in practice here.
Assigned approvers will automatically be notified of pending approvals and asked to review & approve payables. You can learn more about approving here.