Manage approvers and approval groups
The Approvers tab lists everyone who can approve an expense. Learn what the built-in Manager, HR and Standard approvers are, and how to create, change and delete your own approval groups.
The Approvers tab on Approval settings lists everyone who can approve an expense, sorted into groups. Your approval flows are built from these groups: each step in a flow is one group, or several groups asked at the same time. This article explains the built-in approvers and shows how to create and look after your own groups.
Open the Approvers tab
In the HR menu, open Settings and select Approval settings. The page opens on the Approvers tab. It has two sections: Built in, which every company has, and Your groups, which you create yourself.
Every change on this tab is a draft until you select Save changes in the bar at the bottom of the page. Discard throws your unsaved changes away.
Built-in approvers
Manager
The employee's own manager, as set on their profile. A manager is one person, so they always approve alone. The card says how many people in your company are managers, and that employees without a manager go to HR instead.
There is nothing to edit on this card. You change who someone's manager is on that employee's profile. See the article on how the Manager approver is determined.
HR
Everyone with the HR role at your company: the same people who can open the HR pages. CLVR sets who has the role, so you can see them here but not change them. To add or remove someone, contact CLVR support. A flow step that uses HR goes to these people, and so does a Manager step for an employee who has no manager.
If nobody has the HR role, a step that uses HR is skipped. The card then says which flows that affects, in red.
Standard approvers
HR employees who review any uploaded expense that no flow covers. The card is marked Managed by CLVR: CLVR marks who the standard approvers are, so you can see them here but not change them. To add or remove someone, contact CLVR support.
Every standard approver is asked to review, and each of them has to approve. If nobody is marked, those expenses go to everyone with the HR role instead.
Your groups
Your groups are fixed sets of people, such as Salary or Finance, that you can add as a step in any flow. Each card shows the group's name and colour, the flows it is a step in (Step in, followed by the flow names, or Not used in any flow yet), and its members.
If your company already used a Salary or Finance group, it shows here too and works like any group you create.
Create a group
Select New group, the empty card at the end of the section ("Name it, then add people"). A card called New group appears.
Select the name on the card and type the group's name, for example "Finance". A name can be up to 60 characters.
If you like, select the coloured square on the card (Change colour) and pick Grey, Teal, Blue, Amber, Pink or Lime. The colour helps you tell groups apart when you build flows.
Open + Add person and pick the people who should approve for this group. Add as many as you need.
Select Save changes in the bar at the bottom of the page.
The group can now be added as a step in a flow on the Flows tab. See the article on creating and managing approval flows.
Change a group
You can rename a group, change its colour, add people or remove them at any time. Select Save changes when you are done.
A step asks the people who are in its group when an expense reaches that step. So a change of members applies to expenses that reach the step after you save. People who have already been asked to review an expense keep that review.
Delete a group
Select the bin icon on the card (Delete group), then select Save changes.
You can't delete a group that is a step in a flow, because that flow would be left without an approver. Instead, the card shows "You can't delete [group name] yet" with a button for each flow that uses the group. Select a flow to open it, remove the step there, then come back and delete the group. If the group shares a step with other groups, select Move to its own step on it first, then remove that step. Select Got it to close the message.
When a group a flow uses is empty
If a flow uses a group that has nobody in it, the group's card shows a red message, "Add at least one person. Until you do, expenses in [flows] skip this step.", and the Approvers tab gets a red dot. Add at least one person and save.
Until you do, nobody in that group can review expenses. An expense skips a step whose group is empty and goes on to the next step that has people in it. In a step with several groups, only the empty group is left out, and the other groups in the step are still asked. If no step in the flow has anyone, the expense is approved without review.
Keep at least one person in HR at all times. HR takes over Manager steps for employees who have no manager, and reviews uploaded expenses when no standard approvers are marked.
Troubleshooting
- Someone is missing from + Add person. The list shows your company's employees who are not in the group yet. If everyone is already in it, the list says "Everybody is in this group". Add a new colleague as an employee first.
- A member shows as "Former employee". That person is no longer one of your company's employees. Remove them with the x and add someone else if needed.
- I can't delete a group. A flow still has it as a step. Remove the step from each flow named in the message, then delete the group.
- Saving stops with "Give every group and flow a name, then save again." A group or a flow has an empty name. Give it one and select Save changes again.
- Saving fails with "Something went wrong while saving". Reload the page to see what was saved, then make the rest of your changes again.
- I can't change the Standard approvers. CLVR keeps that list. Contact CLVR support to add or remove someone.
- I want to change someone's manager. Managers are set on each employee's profile, not on this page.