Approval of quotes, invoices, and purchase orders

You can set up an approval flow for high-value financial documents like quotes, invoices, and purchase orders. This helps you ensure that the documents exceeding a certain value are reviewed and approved by a manager or any other designated individual in your company before they're finalized and shared with clients. As a result, you can better manage your costs and avoid unnecessary or unauthorized expenditures.

To enable it, you need to set the value threshold from which approval is required and designate the site users or dynamic groups that will be the approvers. Once enabled, here's how the approval process works in short:

1. When a user has created a financial document that exceeds the threshold, they can't share it before it's approved, so they need to request approval;
2. Once requested, the approver is notified and can approve, modify, or request changes in the document;
3. If changes are requested, the creator is notified so they can make the changes and resubmit the document for approval;
4. When approved, the creator is notified and can send the document to the client.

This article shows how to set up the document approval flow and how the approval request and review process works. We're using quotes as an example here, but you can do the same for invoices and purchase orders.

1. Setting up the approval flow

Let's walk through the setup process - we're using quotes as an example here, but you can follow the same steps to set it up for invoices and purchase orders. 

To set up the approval process for quotes:

1. Go to Settings > Sales and finance > Quotes
2. Tick the Enable approvals for quotes checkbox
3. Select the user group or users with approval rights
4. Enter the sum (excluding VAT) that, when exceeded, will require approval for the document
5. Click Save.

Go to Settings > Sales and finance > Invoices and to Settings > Sales and finance > Purchases and follow the same process described above to set it up for invoices and purchase orders.

Once the approval flow is enabled, all new and existing documents that exceed the set threshold will be automatically set to the 'Needs approval' status and will require approval accordingly before they can be sent to the client.

2. Document approval request process

2.1. Requesting the approval

If you've saved your new quote and see the Request approval button in the quote detailed view, it means your quote total sum has exceeded the threshold and must go through a review process. It needs approval from designated people in your company before you can send it to the client.

To submit it for approval:

1. Click the Request approval button
2. Select the approver(s)
3. Click Request to notify the approver(s) of your request.

While the document is pending approval, you can't modify it, and the sending and sharing options will be greyed out. 

If you discover that you need to make some changes, you can cancel the request. Once you've made the necessary adjustments, submit the request again if the total sum still requires it.

You'll get a notification when an approver has requested changes to your document or approved it.

You can use the Approval status filter in the quote list view to see all quotes with the relevant status. Select the Needs approval status to see all the quotes that require approval.

2.2. Reviewing the approval request

If you're the approver, you'll be notified whenever a new document requires your review and approval. Click on the notification to open the specific document.

You can also add the approval status column to your quotes list view and use the approval status filter in the quote list view to see all quotes with the relevant status:

• Approval not needed - quotes that don't exceed the threshold and don't require approval
• Needs approval - quotes that exceed the threshold and require the creator to submit an approval 
• Request pending - quotes that have been submitted for a review
• Changes requested - quotes for which the approver has requested some changes
• Approved - all the approved quotes

When you're reviewing the document and discover that some changes are needed before approving it, click the Request changes button and provide a relevant comment for the creator so they know what to adjust. The creator will be notified to make the changes and will be required to resubmit the approval request.

You can also click the Modify button to modify the document yourself.

Once the quote is ready for approval, click Approve. If the request was made by the document creator, this will notify them of the approval, and they can send or share the quote with the client.

If you were notified about the approval request but the document was already approved, it simply means that the request was sent to several people and has already been approved by someone else. The Approval status row will show the approval date and the approver's initials.

You can also review, modify, and approve any quote requiring approval, even when the document creator hasn't submitted an approval request. Click Modify if some changes need to be made and Approve when the quote is ready for approval.

2.3. Making the requested changes to the document

If you're the creator and the approver requests changes to your document, you'll receive a notification about it. Scroll down to the Comments section in the quote detailed view to see the approver's comment.

After making the required adjustments, click Request approval to notify the approver that the document has been updated and can be reviewed again.

2.4. Sharing the document with the client

Once your document is approved, you'll be notified and can send it out to the client.

2.5. Modifying an approved document

If you already sent out the approved quote and the client has requested some changes, you need to reset the approval flow first before you're able to modify the quote:

1. Click Modify
2. Click Reset approval - this will change the quote's status to 'Needs approval'
3. Make the necessary changes
4. Click Save

Your modified quote will need to undergo the approval process again. Click Request approval whenever you're ready to submit your approval request.