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Approval workflows

Stop chasing approvals by phone

Orders, payment vouchers, and leave requests reach the right approver's inbox through the flow you set up. Approvers see the time left, and an overdue approval can go to the approver's manager or a person you choose.

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01

Small purchases stop at the manager, big ones go up

Send large amounts to upper management without routing every order to the general manager. You build the flow step by step, and a step with a condition only runs for documents that meet it. An approver can be a manager, everyone in a role, a specific person, or a unit manager.

  • Start from 18 ready-made templates for leave, orders, payments, and terminations
  • Let a step pass with 2 approvals out of 3
  • Approvers decide at the same time or one after another
  • The first rejection closes the round, or everyone still decides

02

Let each manager sign within their own limit

Decide once who can sign for how much, and approval stops at the first manager whose limit covers the amount. You give signing limits to people or roles, and the flow climbs the org chart from the manager. You can also set a limit for a specific action or company.

  • A person's own limit overrides their role's limit
  • For someone with several roles, the highest limit applies
  • A company-specific limit replaces the general limit in that company
  • Give the general manager unlimited signing authority

03

Keep who approved and why on the document

When an auditor asks who approved this, you don't have to go looking. Each order or voucher shows every step, who approved, who is still pending, and the note they wrote. IWB reruns checks such as risk limits at approval time, and an approval given despite a warning is saved with that warning.

  • If a submitted document changes, earlier approvals no longer count
  • With a warning, approvers must write a reason, and you can turn this off per flow
  • By default, an order from a blocked vendor cannot be approved
  • The reason you give for a rejection stays visible on the document

04Details

Keep work moving while approvals wait

  • Bulk approval

    Approve the documents you select together, with an optional shared note. Each one moves to the next step in its own flow.

  • Request changes

    Instead of rejecting, send the document back to its owner with a note on what to fix.

  • Timeouts

    Give each step a due time in hours. When it runs out, the task moves to the approver's manager or a person you choose, or opens for them as well.

  • Approval delegation

    Enter a date range for an approver who is away, and approvals opened in that period go to the delegate. No other access is handed over.

  • Four-eyes principle

    The person who submits a document can't approve it. You can turn this rule off for a step if you need to.

  • Test scenarios

    Enter an amount and who opened the document to see who the flow routes to and which steps it skips, without saving anything.

  • Set up with IWB AI

    Describe the flow in the chat. IWB AI shows you what it will do before it sets the flow up, and you approve it.

  • Notifications

    Approvers are notified when a new document arrives. Requesters are notified when it's approved, rejected, or sent back for changes.

05In modules

Where it helps most

06Related features

Tools that work alongside it

All features

07

Frequently asked questions

Which documents can have an approval flow?

Approval flows work on 16 document types, including purchase requisitions and orders, sales orders, expense claims, and finance vouchers. Journal entries, employee requests, timesheets, BOM revisions, and task completion can use a flow too, and so can tender, field service, laboratory, and termination actions. On the sales side, approval is set up on the order, and quotes and invoices stay outside flows.

What happens to documents without a flow?

A document without a flow moves on without approval, as it does today. The flow list in your approval settings shows a warning at the top naming the document types that do not go to approval yet.

What do manager-based steps need?

Steps that go to the manager, the manager's manager, the first manager whose limit covers the amount, or a unit manager read the org chart. They need the Human Resources module to be on. With the module off, you build the flow with role or specific-person approvals.

Do due times count business days?

You set the due time per step in hours, and it runs on calendar hours. For approvals that may fall on a weekend or a holiday, give the step a longer time.

What happens when an approver is away?

If you set up an approval delegation, approvals opened during that period go to the delegate. Without one, a step set to reassign or add an approver on timeout brings in the approver's manager or a person you choose.