To help you design workflows tailored to your business needs, this article includes some common use-case scenarios. You can create as many workflows as necessary, remembering that each document can only be routed to one approval workflow.

For more information on setting up the new workflow engine, see Workflow Approval.

Selecting a Workflow Process

Each workflow can be designed using one of four processes that can be enabled in the Approval Settings:

• Purchase Order: If a PO must be approved directly but the resulting PI can be auto-approved, create a workflow using the Purchase Order process. You can require that the resulting PI be an exact match using the Approval Settings. Alternatively, set tolerance limits while creating the workflow.
• PO Invoice: If a PO and the resulting PI must be approved separately for extra control, create one workflow using the Purchase Order process and another using the PO Invoice process.
• Non PO Invoice: If you do not use POs, create workflows using the Non PO Invoice process.
• Credit Note: If you require credit note approval, you can configure workflows for them in the same manner as for purchase orders and invoices.

Note that all the scenarios described in this article can be employed using any of the processes.

Designing Approval Steps

Workflows can have as many steps as fit your needs. Approval steps are created by selecting approvers and assigning lower and upper approval limits to them. Documents can skip steps if they do not meet the requirements of a step but meet those of the following step.  

Approvers: Steps can have one approver or multiple. In the case of multiple, the step can be approved by all or one approver. The same approver can appear in multiple steps and can approve all their steps simultaneously or just their current step. Alternatively, a step can be set for manual approval.

Setting Limits: Approval limits can be exclusive of each other or overlap. For example, approvers can have the same lower limits but different upper limits. This way an approver with a higher upper limit will receive the same documents those below them did. 

Conditions: Each step can include or exclude one or multiple conditions including Dimension Tag, Dimension Code, GL Code, and Supplier. The Employee condition is only available for Non PO Invoice approval. For each of these conditions, you can select one or multiple codes. The scenarios in this article contain the following conditions:

• Example 1: Dimension Code
• Example 2: Dimension Code and Supplier
• Example 3: GL Code
• Example 4: Supplier
• Example 5: Dimension Tag
• Example 6: Include Dimension Code, Exclude Supplier
• Example 7: Supplier and GL Code 
• Example 8: Budget Holder Approval (Dimension Tag based)

Document to be approved: Multi-line for one department

In this common scenario, an entity issues Purchase Orders relating to a specific department which they will be invoiced for later. Therefore, they can set up an approval workflow based on that department and do the same for any other departments. Once the PO receives departmental approval, it will typically go on to higher levels such as finance approval.

Example:

The biology department of a university receives a purchase order for lab equipment. As the Biology department's lines are coded with the Dimension Code ‘BI-Biology’, their approval workflow can be based on this.  For more on managing Dimensions, see Using Dimensions.

Dimension Code based Approval

To approve on a departmental basis, build one workflow for each department. 

Remember, if you are building multiple similar workflows, save time by using the Copy function in the Workflow grid and then editing the details as needed.

Here we have created a workflow for the department of biology. In this case, the PO process was selected. As auto-approval is not enabled, all relevant POs will go through approval regardless of value.

There are two approval steps, the first for the biology department and the second for finance.

Within the Biology Department Approval step, we have two approvers, one with a limit of 500 GBP and the other unlimited. In this case, all must approve if limits apply. 

The approval is based on Dimension Code as the BI-Biology is unique to this department and found on all relevant documents.

In the case of the document below, as the value is 490 GBP, both approvers must approve the order, before the document progresses to the next approval step.

Document to be approved: Multi-line for multiple departments

In this scenario, an entity issues a PI with lines relevant to multiple departments. Examples include ordering from a taxi or events management company for the organisation as a whole. 

Example:

A corporation orders computer services from a single supplier to be used by both the marketing and IT departments. Each order line is coded with the relevant department Dimension Code. The impacted departments must approve the relevant invoice lines before the invoice goes on to be approved by finance. 

Supplier and Dimension Code based Approval

For this scenario, create one workflow for the whole company. In this case, the Non PO process is selected, meaning that there is no associated order. Auto-approval is not selected here meaning that all PIs will need approval regardless of value.

The workflow contains two steps, one for multiple department approval, and the second for finance approval. 

Approval is based on both Supplier and Dimension Codes. Using Dimension Codes means that each department approver will only have to approve their own lines from this supplier. 

Here the Marketing and IT approvers are set with the same limits, and all must approve if limits apply.

In the case of the document below, as the value 2760 GBP is within both approvers' limits, they both must approve.

Document to be approved: Multi-line linked to a GL Account

In the example below, an entity issues a PO for a laptop. As these expenses are always recorded in a specific Computer Expenses GL account, this can be used as the basis of a workflow.

GL based Approval

In this case, the Purchase Order process was selected. As auto-approval is not enabled, all relevant POs will go through approval regardless of value.

Here we have created a workflow containing two steps.

This workflow is based on GL Code, with account 3840-Computer Expenses selected for all approvers. The approvers in this step are set up with a hierarchy of approval limits. All PO lines tagged to this account will go to the approvers if limits apply.

The approver in the next step is set up to only need to approve items that surpass the limits of the approvers from the step below. They too will only see lines relating to the Computer Expense GL account.

In the case of the document below, as the value is 632 GBP, it will need to be approved by the first approver in the first step only.

Document to be approved: Multi-line from a set Supplier

In this scenario, an entity issues a PI for ongoing expenses such as maintenance and rental/lease fees from a single supplier. Approval can therefore be set up based on that supplier. 

The example below deals with rental fees from a landlord.

Supplier-based Approval

In this case, the workflow can be built for documents received from this supplier. The example here uses the Non PO Invoice process, suitable if you do not use purchase ordering. As auto-approval is not enabled, all relevant PIs will go through approval regardless of value.

In this example, there are two approval steps.

Approval is based on Supplier, meaning all documents relating to the Supplier Code EDE01 will go through this workflow. 

The second approval level has an unlimited approval limit.

In the case of the document below, as the value is 9600 GBP, only the approver from the second step will need to approve.

Document to be approved: Multi-line linked to a Business Area

In the example below, a company orders goods for their warehouse tagged with the Dimension Tags relating to their warehouses. Therefore, they can use these Dimension Tags to create an approval workflow based on business area.

Dimension Tag based Approval

This company can build one company-wide workflow based on Dimension Tag. 

In this case, the Purchase Order process was selected.  As auto-approval is not enabled, all relevant POs will go through approval regardless of value.

As approval is based on Dimension Tag, all documents containing the two warehouse related Dimension Tags will be routed to this workflow. 

Here two approvers have no limits, and only one approver needs to approve this order of 2640 GBP:

Managing potential workflow conflicts

If you have multiple workflows, they must not conflict with each other. Creating workflows with multiple approval conditions allows invoices that share coding to be routed to the correct approval workflow.

In this example a furniture company issues:

• Order A for overheads in general, including their warehouse. 
• Order B for goods received in their warehouse. 

The company needs two workflows to cover both situations. However, as both invoices contain the Dimension Code WH1-Warehouse 1, they must be designed to avoid any potential conflicts.

Purchase Order A is for overheads in general, including the warehouse:

Purchase Order B relates to goods received in the warehouse:

Approval Workflow Setup

• Purchase Order A: As all overheads-related orders (like Order A) come from a single supplier, this company can simply create a supplier-based workflow as covered in Example 4 above. 
• Purchase Order B: Next, they need to create a workflow for warehouse goods (like Order B), ensuring that it does not conflict with the overheads workflow due to shared coding. The example here uses the PO Invoice process. As auto-approval is not enabled, all relevant POs will go through approval regardless of value. This workflow contains two steps, each with an increased approval limit.

By setting up approval for Order B based on both Dimension Code and Exclude Supplier, only those orders with the WH1 - Warehouse 1 Dimension Code that are not from the overheads supplier will be routed to this workflow.

In this instance, only the first approver in the first step needs to approve this order of 3440 GBP.

Documents to be Approved: Multi-line linked to Supplier and GL Codes

In this example, a company issues a PO related to warehouse capital expenditure. The company wants to approve fixed assets purchases separately from other items from this supplier. To do this they can create an approval workflow using both the GL and Supplier Codes.

GL and Supplier-based Approval

In this case, the Purchase Order process was selected. As auto-approval is not enabled, all relevant POs will go through approval regardless of value.

This workflow has two approval steps, one lower level and the second for the head of finance.

The first step includes two approvers with different upper limits. All documents coded with this supplier and the GL Account 5110 can be approved by any approver if it is within their limits.

The second level of approval has an unlimited upper limit. As the lower limit is 0 GBP, they will have to approve all documents that are routed to this workflow.

In the case of this 4440 GBP order, as it is above the upper amount set in the first level, it will skip that step and go straight to Finance approval.

If approvers are set up as budget holders, they will approve based on the lines relating to their assigned budget rather than the document as a whole.

Budgets are set up in General Ledger and Analysis Budgets by assigning amounts to a combination of a GL Code and either all Dimension Tags, no Dimension Tag, or a single Dimension Tag. 

Workflow Setup

This workflow has approval based on Dimension Tag. (Note that workflows with budget-based approvers can approve based on GL Codes in addition to or instead of Dimension Tags. The logic is the same as outlined here.)

Two budget holder approvers are assigned different Dimension Tags. In this case All must approve if limits apply needs to be selected so that each approver receives their lines only.

The Purchase Order

The PO has two lines with the Dimension Tags in the workflow above. Each approver will receive their line only.

Budget Holder Approval Email - Approver 1

In addition to receiving their lines, budget holder approvers van view a breakdown of the budget figures for that year based on the figures set for the Dimension Tag / GL Code selected in General Ledger and Analysis Budgets. 

(Non-budget holders in contrast receive the full document amount to approve or reject.)

Budget Holder Approval Email - Approver 2

The other approver likewise receives an email based on their lines and the figures set for the budget.