The new approval engine is a powerful and flexible tool. Before getting started with the setup, decide as a company how you want the approval process to work, and build from that plan.

When designing your approval processes, take into consideration:

1. What type of purchases do you currently have? Are they specific to departments, locations or projects?
2. Who needs to sign off on specific types of purchases (e.g. capital assets, legal invoices, etc.) or approve certain expenses?
3. Do you have a minimum threshold for approvals?
4. Will single step approval be sufficient in all cases? Or will some purchases require multi-step approvals?
5. Do you maintain budgets in the system, and do you want budget holders to receive information on the budget spend? 

When it comes to setting up your workflows also think about the composition of your orders and/or invoices.  For example:   

Remember: Every document type = one workflow

Always ensure there is correlation between the documents that require approval and your workflows. Refer to Workflow Scenarios for more examples.

User Types

All Approvers must be set up as system users, including those who are business user type.    

All current non-system approvers using the legacy workflow approval will automatically be converted to system users.  This conversion will be triggered as soon as the Approval Settings is saved. 

User Permissions

To use the features referred to in this article, in the Maintain Menu Profiles screen, assign the following permission to the relevant profiles:

In the Menus tab:

• Approval Settings
• Approvers Listing
• Add/Edit Approvers
• Workflows Listing
• Add/Edit Workflows

In the Reports tab:

• Purchase Order Reprint
• Purchase (Product) Invoice Reprint

These insure that users will be able to access approval emails.

For more on user profiles, see Setting Up System Users.

For a video tutorial of this process, watch Configuring Workflow Approval Settings (18.1N).

1. Navigate to Setup > Approval Settings.
   
2. Enable approval for the required approval modes.  If you selected both Purchase Order and Purchase Invoice approval, enable Require exact matching if needed. Refer to ‘Approval Modes’ below for more information. 
3. Decide if you want to Re-approve PO Documents from integrated products or Re-approve PO Documents from integrated products. This means that documents that may already have been approved in a third-party system will still enter an approval workflow. Note, this does not apply to AP Inbox or Employee Expenses invoices.
4. Enter the Workflow Approval Administrator’s email address to notify them of any pending actions on documents needing their attention. 
5. Click Save.

Approval Modes

The approval modes you select impact how your documents progress through workflows. Note that using Purchase Order and Purchase Invoice together (see option 4 below) has a different impact using either individually.

For full details on setting up workflows, see the section ‘Creating Workflows’.

1. Purchase Orders approval (without Purchase Invoice approval)

• Once a PO is approved, you can create and post the matching invoice immediately. 
• Editing the invoice does NOT affect PO approval. 
• Auto-approval and tolerance rules in the PO workflow apply only to the PO and do not affect the invoice. 

2.Purchase Invoice approval (without PO approval)

• Used for invoices without a Purchase Order (Non PO Invoices), including Employee expenses.

3. Purchase Credit Note approval

• Configured like Non PO invoices.

4.Purchase Orders + Purchase Invoices (PO & PI together)

What workflows can you create?

• Non PO Invoices (no order) 
• Purchase Orders 
• PO Invoices (invoices linked to approved POs) 

Do PO Invoices always enter their own workflow?

Not always, this depends on PO Invoice value and settings.

• Matching or lower value and/or quantity than the PO: The PO Invoice will be Auto-approved, with no separate workflow needed.
• Higher quantity than the PO: This is not a permitted action. Instead, update the PO and reapprove it first.
• Higher value than the PO: What happens depends on two settings:
  • Approval Settings: Require Exact Matching (ON/OFF) 
  • Purchase Order Workflow settings: Tolerance + Auto-approve setting 

Creating Approvers

For a video tutorial of this process, watch Create and Manage Approvers (18.2N).

1. Navigate to Setup > Approvers and click New Approver. 

2. Select an Approver (approvers must be set up as system users first to appear on the list).
3. Tick the checkbox if the approver is a budget holder. Approvers flagged as Budget Holders will receive a different approval email template containing details of the budget line. If using this option, ensure that workflows are set up based on Dimension Tags and / or Dimension Codes, and that the Codes and / or Tags selected are linked to a Dimension labelled as ‘Budgetary’. See Workflow Scenarios and Using Dimensions  for further details.
4. Assign a substitute approver if needed. Substitute approvers approve documents in place of the primary approver during specific dates, such as for annual or sick leave. If the substitute approver does not approve the document within the designated dates, it will need to be re-sent to the original approver for approval. Substitute approvers must be set up as approvers first to appear in the list. Note that if an approver regularly approves documents on behalf of someone else, they should be set up as part of the workflow. 
5. Enable Send approval requests by Email/Mobile if the approver should be notified via email, and/ or via the Mobile app.
6. If applicable, activate if approver can approve their own documents. (There will be a drop down to select a designated approver if the primary approver can approve their own documents.) 
7. Save.     

Restricted Approver View

If an approver approves directly in the system rather than via email, there is a restricted view option. In the Edit Group User screen, check User can only view Purchase Orders/Invoices sent to them for approval. This means that only documents sent for their approval will be visible to that approver. If they are a Business User, they will only see POs awaiting their approval and if they are a Finance User, they will only see POs and PIs.

Managing Approvers

Manage approvers in the Approvers listing grid. Go to Setup > Approvers. 

Refine your search using filters and search fields and export details as an Excel report.

The Actions dropdown lets you manage approvers as follows: 

• Edit: All approver details can be edited except their name and email. 
• Deactivate: Approvers cannot be deleted if any of their associated workflows have been used. Instead, they can be deactivated. To re-activate users, click on this button again.
• Show associated workflows: This will take you to the Workflow screen, showing just the workflows associated with the selected approver. 

Deactivating Approvers

If you are switching approvers for a workflow:

1. Create the new approver as outlined in this section.
2. Swap the old approver for the new in the relevant workflows.
3. In the group layer, unassign the old approver from any entities and then deactivate that user. See Setting Up System Users.

If you have any concerns regarding correct billing, contact support@accountsiq.com to make them aware of the change.

 

Creating Approval Workflows

Workflows are created based on the types of documents your organisation approves, as well as factors such as whether the workflow involves single or multiple departments, requires one or several approvers, involves different hierarchy levels, and any specific conditions or rules tied to the approval of Purchase Orders and/or Invoices.

• Before you begin, refer to section 2, “Designing your automated approval process,” for guidance on creating workflows.

Step 1: Enable the Relevant Approval Setting

Before creating a workflow, make sure the corresponding approval process is enabled in Setup > Approval Settings. 

Step 2: Create the Workflow

1. Navigate to Workflows.
2. Click New Workflow.
   
3. Complete the following fields:
   • Workflow: Enter a unique workflow name.
   • Process: Select the type of document the workflow will handle. Only those processes enabled in Workflow Settings will be available for selection.
   • Auto-approval: Enable this option if your organization automatically approves documents up to a specified value and enter that value here.
   • Re-approval rules for edits: If a document is changed after approval, set a tolerance value to define how much it can be edited without needing to go through approval again. Tolerance can be set as a net amount, gross amount, or percentage.
   • Auto-approve invoice within Re-approval tolerance (Purchase Orders process only): Enable this if you want the linked PO Invoice to be auto-approved when it's equal to or below the tolerance set in Re-approval rules for edits. If this is left disabled, the re-approval rules apply to the Purchase Order only, and the linked invoice will go through a separate PO Invoice workflow instead.

Step 3: Set Up Approval Steps

Approval Steps let you create multiple levels of approval and let you add multiple approvers at each level. 

Configuring the steps

1. Click Add a Step to create the first level of approval.
2. Use Approve based on to direct documents to the right approvers according to specific conditions. 
   • Including Conditions: You can use multiple conditions from the available options. For instance, if your approval process requires all department heads to approve their own department's expenses, you could use Dimension Tags or Dimension Codes to identify each department and assign the relevant approvers. This ensures expenses are routed correctly at every approval level.
   • Omitting Conditions: If the approval level is intended to approve any document of that type, do not apply any conditions.
   • Non-PO Invoices only: This workflow process also includes an 'Employee' condition, letting you build an approval workflow for employee expenses. After selecting an approver, only employees linked to that approver on their Employee expenses account will appear for selection.

3. Select the Approver from the dropdown.

4. Enter the approver's limits or select the “No limit” option. Limits are based on net value; only documents within these limits will be sent to that approver.
5. Select the relevant codes and use the Include or Exclude options to set your conditions. For example, to include all Dimension tags except two, choose Exclude and select those two codes or if the rule applies to only one Dimension tag, choose Include and add that code. Make sure any documents set to be excluded are included in another workflow, so they aren't missed in your approval process.

4. If needed, click Add New to include more approvers at this level.
5. When more than one approver is set up, select the corresponding Decision Mode:
   • All approvers must approve if limits apply: Use this if you want to approve multi-line, multi-departmental documents.
   • Any can approve: Select this only if multiple approvers are linked to the same department.
   • Select when processing the document: Requires users to manually choose an approver when processing the document.
6. When done, click Save.
   
7. If needed, click Add a step to add the next level of approval. Repeat until all required approval levels are set up. If the same approver is assigned to more than one step, you can configure whether their approval or rejection applies to the current step only, or to all steps at once.

Step 4: Save and Activate the Workflow

1. After creating the workflow, click Save. It will appear as a 'Draft' in the Workflow listing.
2. If you're ready to start processing documents through this workflow, click Activate.

WFA Migration

Migrating results in the following:

• The Approver setup tab will be renamed to Bulk Payments Approvers.
• In Company Details & Settings > Approval Settings, Purchase Approval Settings will disappear. Batch Payment Settings will remain until they are migrated later.
  

If you are a customer using the legacy workflow approval engine, refer to the Migration process section for more information on migration.

Go to Setup > Audit Log. 

Use the Audit Log to investigate any workflow-related issues:

• View when approver records, or workflows have been activated or deactivated.
• View any updates made to approval settings, approver limits, substitutes, workflow steps, and auto-approval rules.
• View a change summary along with user and timestamp details.
• Filter and export grid contents for further analysis.
• Add or Remove columns.

Initiating Workflow Approval

Once your workflows are complete and at least one is activated, the new workflow engine will initiate. All purchase orders and/or purchase invoices in the system will be picked up by a corresponding workflow based on its setup and document type.

For a video tutorial on sending documents for approval, watch Processing Documents with Approval Workflow (18.4N).

Viewing Document Approval Status

The approval status of all documents will display in the Approval Status column of the relevant listing grid listing grids. (Note, as each document can have multiple approvers instead of just one, it is no longer possible to display have an Approvers column in the listing grid.)

Approval Status in the Purchase Orders listing grid:

Approval Status in the Purchase Item Invoices / Credit Note listing grid:

Meaning of Document Approval Statuses

Note, if you are using the legacy WFA engine, and just activated a new workflow in the new WFA engine, the Approved status of all your POs will be updated. Please refer to section 9. Migration process in this article for more details.  

When a document goes through the approval process, it may go through different approval statuses, depending on the workflow setup. Click on the Document Approval Statuses to view their meaning:

Approval Not Required

 

Pending

 

Action Required

 

Admin Required

 

Awaiting Approval

 

Approved

 

Rejected

 

Cancelled

 

 

This status will appear for:

• Documents from integrated projects that are set to not be reapproved in AIQ.
• Purchase Orders for those on the AIQ1 price plan.

 

This is the initial status and is used when a newly created document is waiting to be picked up by a workflow. 

Action required means a document was picked up by a workflow but:

• A step needs to be completed, for example, selecting an approver manually.
• The document needs to be resubmitted for approval. In this case

Workflow Approval Administrators will be notified via email when their attention is required. 

Why is Admin Required Appearing?

• Multiple workflows: If multiple workflows are found containing the same conditions, flip the rule of the first workflow on its head in the second workflow. For example: the first workflow includes dimension condition: warehouse, and 2nd workflow includes dimension condition: warehouse and supplier: xxx. Therefore, in the first workflow add supplier based on condition and set it to exclude supplier: xxx.
• When no workflow is found. 
• If the document was created before the workflow. In this case, edit the document to force it to enter a workflow.
• A workflow was edited erroneously. 

How can I investigate the cause?

• Use the Audit Log to view details of all edits.
• Hover over Notes to view more details of the error. The WFA administrator must update the workflow accordingly for the document to be processed successfully.  

• See the Approval Workflow Details Report in the Report Manager. This gives a breakdown of all the settings selected in each workflow:

The metro map displays which approval steps have yet to be approved. If a step needs to be resubmitted for approval, click Resubmit next to the relevant step.

The document is fully approved by all steps in the workflow.    

Documents rejected by the approver and requiring editing. When one step is rejected by an approver, the whole document is rejected.

Cancelled documents will not be picked up by a workflow. 

 

Viewing Approval Steps Statuses

For details on workflow steps, click on the document status link in the grid or on the Notes against each document. The status link displays a useful metro map indicating where the document is within a workflow. 

The metro map shows the status of the individual steps and details of the approvers:

Step Status	Explanation
Awaiting Approval	No approver has interacted with this step yet.
Approved	Steps get this status when all relevant approvers have approved the step. If the step was approved by a substitute, this will be detailed along with the regular approver using ‘on behalf of’.
Rejected	At least one approver has rejected this step.
Skipped	This appears when the value of the document exceeds the limits of the approvers   in a step or if an approver cannot approve their own documents.
Select Approver	This appears if the decision mode was set to manual approval.

Approver Notifications

If you are an approver, you will be notified by email and/or the approval app. 

Note the following regarding notifications:

• Multi-Approver Workflows: If there are multiple approvers in a step and only one approver is required, the other approver/s will receive a message when they go to click on the Approve / Reject option.
• Auto-Emailing PO: See Creating Automations for full details. This feature allows you to automate the emailing of purchase orders to suppliers directly from the system. Once a PO is approved, it is automatically sent to the designated recipient, ensuring timely communication, reducing manual effort, and minimising errors.
• Reminders: Automated reminder notifications will be available in the next stage of development. This feature will automatically send reminders to approvers for pending tasks, such as invoice approvals or purchase order approvals. It ensures deadlines are met, keeps workflows moving efficiently, and reduces delays caused by missed approvals.

There are three ways to approve a document, email, the listing grid, and the mobile app. For full details on the app, see Using the Mobile App for Workflow Approval.

Approving Documents via Email

If this approval request option was selected during approver setup, you will receive an email as follows:

Click the Approve or Reject button, enter an optional note, then click Approve or Reject. 

If you are unsure about whether to Approve/Reject a document, you must select an option but can leave a note stating your concerns. All notes will appear in the email to all approvers, so the next approver in line will see your note.

Approving Documents via the listing grid

If the document has a status of ‘Awaiting Approval’, go to Actions > Register Approval or Rejection. 

Enter an optional note and click Approve or Reject. 

If you are unsure about whether to Approve/Reject a document, you must select an option but can leave a note stating your concerns. All notes will appear in the email to all approvers, so the next approver in line will see your note.