Choose an approval flow for a benefit or a category's uploads
Use Approval flow on Benefit settings to pick an approval flow for a category's purchases, for a single benefit, or for a category's uploaded expense reports, and see what applies when you pick none.
Every benefit and every upload has a default way of being approved. When a category or a single benefit needs different handling, you pick one of your approval flows for it under Approval flow on the Benefit settings page. This article covers the three places you can pick a flow: as the default for a category's purchases, for a single benefit, and for a category's uploaded expense reports.
Before you start
You pick from the approval flows your company has built. You build them on the Flows tab of Approval settings, under Settings in the HR menu, and select Save changes there. Until your company has a saved flow, the Approval flow lists only offer the default.
Purchases: the category's default
On the Benefit Store tab of a category, Defaults for all benefits has an Approval flow list. The flow you pick here is used for purchases of every benefit in the category that has no flow of its own. Benefits that are approved automatically stay automatic and don't take the category's default: their row reads Default (Automatic) whatever the category's default is.
In the HR menu, open Settings and select Benefit settings.
Select the category and open the Benefit Store tab.
Under Defaults for all benefits, pick a flow in Approval flow.
Select Save changes in the bar at the bottom of the page.
The first option, Standard approvers, means the category has no default flow. Each benefit then keeps its own built-in rule, which you can read on its row.
Purchases: a single benefit
Each row in the Benefits list has an Approval flow column. Its first option, Default (...), shows what the benefit uses when it has no flow of its own:
- Default with a flow name: the category's default flow.
- Default (Automatic): purchases are approved automatically.
- Default (Standard): purchases wait for HR to approve them on the Expenses page.
Pick a flow in the list to give the benefit a flow of its own. It is shown in purple and is used instead of the category's default. To go back, pick the Default option again, or select Reset all benefits to the defaults above. That link also resets the benefits' own payroll codes and BIK.
So a purchase uses the benefit's own flow first, then the category's default for purchases, then the benefit's built-in rule. Benefits that are approved automatically stay automatic and don't take the category's default.
A benefit listed in a second category is set under its own category, and its purchases follow that category's default.
Uploads: a category's expense reports
When an employee uploads a receipt, you can give its category a flow of its own, so that for example wellness receipts and travel receipts are reviewed by different people. This only affects uploaded expense reports, not benefits bought in the store.
Select the category and open the Upload expense report tab.
Under Approval, pick a flow in Approval flow.
Select Save changes in the bar at the bottom of the page.
The first option in the list shows what uploads in the category use without a flow of their own:
- Standard approvers: your standard approvers review the upload, and each of them has to approve. If none are marked, the people in your HR group do.
- Default with a flow name: your company has a default flow for uploads, and it is used.
To go back, pick the first option again and save. So an upload uses the category's own flow first, then your company's default flow for uploads if you have one, then your standard approvers.
See what uses a flow
On the Flows tab of Approval settings, the Used by line of each flow lists the categories that use it: for their uploads, as their default for purchases, or for one of their benefits.
Troubleshooting
- Approval flow only offers the default. Your company has no saved flows yet. Create one on the Flows tab of Approval settings, select Save changes there, then reload Benefit settings.
- My new flow is not in the list. Check that you saved it on Approval settings, then reload Benefit settings.
- A benefit does not follow the category's default. The benefit has a flow of its own, shown in purple: pick its Default option to use the category's default. Or the benefit is approved automatically, shown as Default (Automatic), and stays that way.
- The save says "Custom approval: another save changed the approval flows for this benefit at the same moment, so nothing was saved." Someone else saved at the same time. Reload the page, make your change again and save.
- Nothing changed for earlier expenses. A flow applies to expenses submitted after you save. Expenses already submitted keep the path they started on.