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Creating Pre-Set Approval Rules for Payables

Olivia Millard
Updated

Routable users with admin privileges can create or edit Approval Rules that automatically assign approvers to payables, as they are created in Routable.

You can set up approval rules by heading to your Account Settings page and then to Payable Approvals → Approval rules

An approval rule includes the below elements

  1. Conditions

  2. Approvers

  3. Amount Thresholds

Adding conditions

Routable currently supports several conditions upon which you can base your rules.

  1. Vendor

  2. Bill Creator

  3. GL Account

  4. Department

  5. Location

  6. Class

  7. Item

  8. Project (depending on ledger)

The conditions available to your workspace will depend on which accounting software you are integrated with, if any. You can learn about the conditions supported for different ledger integrations here.

A rule can include a single or multiple conditions.

(Eg: Vendor and GL Account)

For every condition selected, it must include one or multiple (or) values

(Eg: Vendor = Google or Apple or Samsung)

It is not mandatory to add a condition for a rule.

⭐ Note: We plan to support several more conditions in the future so please reach out to your Routable rep if you don’t see the condition you require

💡 Tip: Pay close attention to the use of ALL as opposed to ANY
​all = both, all of
​any = either, any one of

Adding approvers & approval levels

All Approval Rules support adding multiple approval levels.

Each approval level must include at least one approver. If including more than one approver on a single level, you must choose if ALL or ANY of the approvers can approve. You can add as many approvers as needed to any level.

  • ALL = each approver on this level must approve the payment to satisfy the rule

  • ANY = any one approver on this level must approve the payment to satisfy the rule

The order of the approval levels within a rule can be changed. The order will determine the sequence in which the approvers will be displayed on the payable.

The same approver can be included across multiple rules or approval levels, however they will only be listed on a single approval level on a bill (based on the 1st rule that triggers that particular approver).

Example:

  • Rule #1 : Josh Stamos approves all marketing invoices over $100

  • Rule #2 : Matt Black approves all invoices over $500

  • Rule #3 : Josh Stamos or Stacy Smith or Diana Jeeves approves all invoices over $0

If a payable were created, in the amount of $1000 and coded to the Marketing department, the approval sequence would be:

  • Approval level 1 - Josh Stamos (Triggered by rule #1)

  • Approval level 2 - Matt Black (Triggered by rule #2)

  • Approval level 3 - Stacy Smith or Diana Jeeves (Triggered by rule #3)

Only Routable users that have “approval permission” can be added. Non-users can never be added as an approver in Routable.

☝️ Important: If an approver is applicable on a level with an ANY condition as well as another level with ALL condition, the approver will be listed in the position where ALL approvers are needed (irrespective of the order of the rule).

Selecting amount thresholds

Every approval level must also have a Bill Amount condition associated with it.

By default, all bill amount conditions will be set to “Greater than or equal to $0 USD”. This is the ideal selection if you want all payments, of any amount, to be approved at this level.

When selecting a condition based on Bill Amount, you can select between the following options

  1. Greater than or equal to

    1. Example: Greater than or equal to $100 (all bills greater than or equal to $100.00 USD will be considered)

  2. Between

    1. Example: Between $500 and $1000 (all bills between $500.01 USD and $1000.99 USD will be considered)

  3. Below

    1. Example: Below $100 (all bills up to $99.99 will be considered)

Rules will always be based on USD value. In the case of international payments, this will be calculated at the time of creation based on the currency conversion.

Other rule creation considerations

  • Any new rules or edits are only applied to future payables.

  • If you want a previously created bill to adhere to your new rules, you will need to edit that payable in order to trigger the approval rules to be applied.

  • Only admins can create or edit approval rules. All other users have view-only access.

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