Approval Policies

Approval Policies gives advisory firms one place to see and manage AP approval workflows across every client business — without switching into each one. For each business you see whether the workflow is enabled, its auto-approve and ops dollar thresholds, and how many approvers are assigned. From here you provision (enable) the workflow or update thresholds. It lives in the /settings Practice Management section and pairs with the AP Approval Workflow article, which explains how individual bills are distributed through tiers.

Key capabilities

• Cross-client view of AP approval across all managed businesses
• Summary cards: Total Businesses, Approval Enabled, Not Configured
• Per-business status badge: Enabled, Not configured, or Error
• Per-business display of Auto-approve and Ops thresholds (in dollars)
• Total approvers assigned count per enabled business
• Enable (provision) the workflow for a business in one modal
• Update thresholds for an already-enabled business
• Threshold validation: Ops must exceed Auto-approve; Auto-approve must be non-negative
• Inline link to the AP Approval Workflow knowledge-base article
• Businesses without the workflow still appear so you can turn them on

How it works

The page loads each business's workflow state, then lets you provision or adjust thresholds in place.

flowchart TD
  open["Open /settings?section=approval"] --> load["Load each business workflow"]
  load --> status{"Enabled?"}
  status -->|"Yes"| show["Show thresholds + approver count"]
  status -->|"No"| notcfg["Show Not configured"]
  show --> update["Update thresholds"]
  notcfg --> enable["Enable (provision)"]
  update --> save["Set auto / ops max"]
  enable --> save

How to use it

1. Open Settings > Approval Policies.
2. Review the summary cards for how many businesses have approval enabled vs. not configured.
3. For a business showing Not configured, click Enable to open the provisioning modal.
4. Set Auto-Approve Max ($) and Ops Approval Max ($) — Ops must be greater than Auto-Approve — then Provision Workflow.
5. For an enabled business, click Update to adjust the same thresholds later.
6. Read the linked AP Approval Workflow article to understand how bills are distributed through tiers and contract matching.

Pro tips

• Defaults start at $500 auto-approve and $5,000 ops — a sensible conservative baseline you can tune per client.
• Standardize thresholds across similar clients, then adjust outliers individually.
• Provisioning is idempotent: re-running it with default values resets thresholds back to defaults without breaking bills already in flight.
• Assign approvers per tier from the business's own AP Approval page — this firm view shows the count, not the assignment editor.
• A business showing Error failed to load its workflow; refresh, and if it persists, open that business's AP Approval page directly.

In-depth guide

Tiers & thresholds

Bills are directed to one of three outcomes based on amount and contract match:

Thresholds are entered in dollars in the modal. The Ops threshold must be strictly greater than the auto-approve threshold; the auto-approve threshold may be zero or more.

Default thresholds

These prefill the provisioning modal when a business hasn't been configured yet.

Provisioning & idempotency

• Enable: provisions the workflow for the business.
• Update: re-provisions with new thresholds.
• Idempotent: running it again with the default values resets thresholds to defaults, so it doubles as a reset.
• In-flight bills: continue through the tier they were routed into; threshold changes apply only to bills created afterward.

Approver counts

• What the card shows: for enabled businesses, the total number of approvers assigned across tiers (Operations, Advisor, Owner).
• Where to assign them: choosing who approves at each tier happens on the individual business's AP Approval page; this firm-wide page surfaces the aggregate count so you can spot businesses with zero approvers.

Relationship to the AP Approval Workflow

This page is the firm-level configuration surface; the AP Approval Workflow article documents runtime behavior — routing, the Pending Approvals queue, risk scoring, contract match statuses, notifications, and the audit trail. Read it for how bills actually move through the tiers you set here.

Audit implications

• Governance events: provisioning and threshold changes are recorded as governance events.
• Per-bill trail: approvals and rejections are written to the audit log with the acting user, bill, and tier.
• Where to look: use Settings > Audit Log for a full history during close and SOC reviews.

Edge cases

• Businesses with no workflow still appear with a Not configured badge and an Enable action.
• Entering non-numeric amounts, or an Ops threshold not greater than Auto-approve, blocks submission with a validation message.
• If no firm is selected, the page shows a "No firm selected." placeholder.