Approvals - Getting started

1What the Approvals area is #

Requests that need somebody's yes - a leave, an expense claim, a credit limit crossed, a special discount at the counter, a salary payment, a document on a workflow - all arrive in one Approvals Inbox, and the bell at the top of every screen counts them. Each kind is still decided on its own screen, by its own rules; the inbox and the bell make sure the right people hear about it, are reminded, and that nothing waits unseen.

The journey of a request is always the same:

2Where to find help #

• On every screen: the Help panel on the right - what the screen is for, how to work in it, every field, the keys, and every message it can show with its cause and fix.
• The manual: at the foot of this page, every approval screen - the inbox, each desk, the salary payment and draft receipt screens, the CRM approvals and the set-up screens behind them - in the words their Help panels use.
• Search help in the header searches every screen's help at once (tick This screen only to stay on one); Ask answers a question in your own words from the same help.

3Where things are - the Approvals menu #

On the Approvals menu page each desk's card shows how many requests are waiting on you at that desk, and the Approvals Inbox card shows the total. The numbers follow the bell.

Elsewhere:

4First-day setup (administrator) #

1. Name the approvers - each kind in its own place: a credit approver on each account's credit-limit record, or the fallback list in setting 211; the leave approval rules; the Approve right on the extra-work, employee-claim and cashier special-discount objects (User Permissions); the Approve right on the salary payment posting voucher type; the steps of each voucher workflow.
2. Open Settings > Approval Alert Settings and set who is told about a request nobody can decide (214), the reminder hours (215), the escalation hours (216), and whether approvers are e-mailed (219). If the ERP is reached by more than one name, set the web address for e-mail links (220).
3. For e-mail: a working account in Settings > Email Account, and an e-mail address on every approver's user account.
4. Grant the Approval Register report object to whoever reads Approval Ageing and Throughput.

5Keys #

6The Approvals Inbox #

One place for every approval in the system. The bell is for glancing; this page is for working through what is outstanding.

The three views

Reading a row

• Columns: Raised, Age, Module (Credit limit, Leave, Employee claim, Extra work, Salary payment, Draft receipt, Voucher workflow ...), What, Amount, Status, Raised by, Decided by, Act and - on the ERP edition - Branch.
• Age is the column that matters: a pending request turns amber past a day and red past three. It is a reading aid; the reminder and escalation hours in the settings are what actually chase people.
• The header counts what is waiting on you, what is unread, and the rows listed.

Filtering

Module, Status (Pending, Approved, Rejected, Cancelled, On hold, Returned, Expired), Branch (ERP, when you have rows from more than one) and Raised from / to. Every choice comes from your own rows, so a filter only ever narrows what you already have. Clear filters puts them back.

Working through it

1. Open Approvals > Approvals Inbox, or Open the approvals inbox from the bell. It starts on Action Required.
2. Click a row - or focus it and press Enter - to open the thing it is about in a new tab, leaving the inbox where it is. Opening marks it read.
3. Decide it there, on its own screen, by its own rules. When the decision is written, the row clears for everybody who was asked.
4. A voucher workflow row can be decided right here: Approve, Reject or Escalate on the row (or on the right-click menu) opens the decision window. Remarks are required and kept with the decision for good. OK (F5).

Reading a workflow step before deciding

These open only for somebody the document concerns: an approver on any of its steps, the person who raised it, or a Workflow Manager user.

Read, resolved, dismissed

• Read - you have seen it. Reading is not doing: a read request still sits in Action Required. Mark all read clears every unread mark.
• Resolved - somebody decided it. When one approver of several acts, it clears from everyone's Action Required. A voucher workflow row is one person's: it closes when you answer, carrying your outcome, even while the step still waits on your colleagues.
• Dismissed - you hid it from your own list without pretending the work happened. Dismiss from the bell.

• A notification never grants access. The screen a row opens applies its own permissions, so a row you can see is not necessarily a document you may open.
• The inbox shows what you were told, whatever branch it came from - hiding a task behind a branch filter would leave you with invisible work. The Branch filter is there when you want only your own.
• Administrators have Run sweep now, which does at once what the background sweep does every half hour: reminders, escalations, clean-up, and a check that the inbox matches the real requests.

7The bell #

• The badge counts what is waiting on you. It updates by itself while you are signed in (setting 218 pushes it live; off, it refreshes as you move between screens).
• Click it: Action Required lists what waits on you; Status Updates lists what happened to your requests - approved, rejected, put on hold. Opening the flyout refreshes the count first, so the number and the list agree.
• Click an item to open it. The ✕ beside an item dismisses it from your own list.
• Mark all read clears the unread marks. Open the approvals inbox opens the full page; Open my mail outbox opens the messages the ERP sent on your behalf (Communications).
• Other modules ring the same bell with reminders - a snoozed conversation coming back, a colleague mentioning you in a conversation note, CRM follow-ups and appointments.

8E-mail, reminders and escalation #

E-mail to the approver

With setting 219 on (the default), everyone a request is put to is also e-mailed once, with a link that opens the record ready to act on. The bell only reaches somebody already signed in; the e-mail reaches the approver who is not. The link starts with setting 220 - where this site is published; blank, it uses the address the ERP was last opened at. Mail goes through Settings > Email Account to the e-mail on each person's user account, and every attempt - sent, failed or skipped - is in Admin > Notification Log.

The sweep

A background job inside the API looks every half hour (the first time a few minutes after the API starts), in every company database:

• Remind - a request unanswered for setting 215's hours (default 24) is flagged again for its approvers. The original notification is re-flagged, not duplicated.
• Escalate - a request unanswered for setting 216's hours (default 72) is passed to the administrators named in setting 214. Blank 214 means such requests are only logged.
• Nobody can decide it - a request with no approver at all goes to the setting 214 people at once, rather than being dropped.
• Clean up - read status updates older than setting 217's days (default 90) are removed. A pending request is never removed, however old.
• Reconcile - each module's real pending requests are compared with the inbox, so a request missed while something was down is published, and one decided elsewhere is resolved.

9Credit Approvals - credit-limit exceptions #

The credit limit is a hard stop inside the voucher save. A ticket records the exception as an exception - who asked, who granted how much, for how many bills, and which bills rode it.

1. An outward voucher fails to save with a credit-limit variation. The transaction screen offers Request approval, which raises a ticket with the block's own figures. (Or press Raise a ticket here: pick the party and its credit position appears - balance, limit, any live grant, what is available or how far over, the credit period with its overdue bills, and whether a ticket already waits. Key the blocked bill's value to see where it would leave the account.)
2. The ticket lands as Pending. At most one pending ticket per account - a second attempt returns the standing ticket's number.
3. An approver presses Decide: the Allowed deviation above the limit (seeded with the shortfall), Valid for next N bills, an optional Valid until date, and remarks. Approve or Reject - a rejection needs a remark.
4. The operator saves the same voucher again. The check now reads limit plus deviation and admits it.
5. Every outward book-affecting voucher of that party uses one of the N bills - all of them, not only over-limit ones. At N the grant becomes Exhausted. Cancel withdraws a pending ticket (its raiser or an approver) or ends a live grant early (approvers only).

• Who decides: the account's own approver on its credit-limit record, anyone on the fallback list (setting 211), or any administrator. The raiser may not approve their own ticket unless setting 212 allows it (administrators are exempt). Setting 213 caps N (10 unless changed).
• Credit modes per account: Block (the hard stop), Warn (the save proceeds; the limit is advisory), Approval (the hard stop plus this ticket path).
• One pending and one live grant per account, enforced by the database. A bill used is recorded with its voucher inside the save's own transaction; cancelling that voucher later does not hand the bill back.
• Statuses: Pending, Approved (the live grant), Rejected, Exhausted, Cancelled. The Credit Approval Register report is the audit trail; the Credit Exposure report shows each party's live grant.

10Leave Approvals #

Every submitted leave request waits here at level 1 or level 2 of its approval rule. Drafts stay on the Leave Request page until submitted.

1. Click the pending row. The employee's request is on the left, the editable approval values on the right.
2. Check the balance panel - has the employee earned the days they ask for? Trim the dates or change the type if needed; the trail records what you set.
3. Press Approve (F5) - or Recommend at level 1 of a two-level rule, which moves it to level 2 for the final decision. Or Reject - remarks are required when setting 178 is on.
4. The row leaves the inbox; the employee sees the outcome on the Leave Request page.

• Who may act: the rule names the approver per level - the employee's Reporting Person, a named user (who may act without extra permission), or any holder of Approve on Leave Approvals. Permission holders see and may act on every pending request.
• What approval writes, in one transaction: the approval voucher, the attendance voucher (when setting 121 posts leave approvals automatically), and the balance utilization in the leave ledger.
• Reversing: load the approved request by its number and press Cancel Approval (reverse). While the auto-posted attendance voucher is live the reversal is refused and names that voucher - cancel it first.
• Notifications: payroll settings 193-198 decide the channels, events, profiles, the standing HR list and background sending. Send Notification on an opened request does it by hand.

11Employee claims and extra work #

Employee Claim Approvals

1. Press Load (F2). Pending claims appear with reference, date, employee, lines and requested total (Include decided claims lists everything, for review).
2. Select a claim (double-click opens the claim itself in a new tab) and press F7. Every line is ticked at its requested amount: untick a line to refuse it, lower an Approved Amt for a part approval, add a remark.
3. Pick Approved and press Approve & Post (F5) - the banner names the Journal posted (employee credited, expense heads debited). Or pick Rejected or On Hold with a reason; the employee alters it and it returns as Altered.

• Needs the Approve right on the employee-claim object; the statuses offered are the ones your user may set. A non-ERP edition offers Cancelled only.
• Approved is final - reverse the posted journal in accounts if needed. At least one line must be approved for Approved; approved amounts are never above what was asked. Remarks are required for every status except Approved.

Extra-Work Approvals

With setting 204 on, every extra-work entry - keyed by hand, or made by the Time Log Manager's break-hours tick - is saved as Draft and counts for nothing until approved here.

1. Press Load (F2). Pending entries appear oldest first with employee, date, reason, quantity and description.
2. Pick Approved or Rejected in each row's Status box - or tick several and press Approve Selected / Reject Selected. Changed rows turn amber and are counted.
3. Press Save (F5). Every changed row is written in one go, stamped with your login and the time. A wrong entry is best cancelled (Cancel Entry, with a reason) and re-entered with Extra Work Entry (F6).

• Needs the Approve right on the extra-work object. Approved hours count at once in the Time Log Manager and the next attendance run; attendance already generated is not recomputed. Cancelled is final.

12Special discounts at the cash counter #

A special discount is agreed on one sales bill before it is paid at the counter. Within the cashier's authority it is granted at once; above it, an approver decides.

1. The cashier raises it on Cashier > Special Discounts: the day, the bill (unsettled, not cancelled, not already carrying a request), By Percentage or By Value, and the reason. The dialog shows the discount in rupees and whether it is within authority.
2. Within authority it is Approved at once. Above it (or always, if setting 226 says so) it is Open and the approvers are told - bell, inbox and e-mail.
3. The approver opens Approvals > Special Discount Approvals and presses Decide: Approve, Reject, or put On hold. Rejecting or holding needs a remark.
4. The cashier settles the bill. An approved discount is taken off; a waiting one blocks the bill - or, with setting 228 at Settle at full price, the bill goes at full price and the request is withdrawn.

• Authority comes from Cashier Discount Authority - the most specific active row wins: the user at this branch, the user, the role at this branch, the role, the branch, the company. With no row, settings 111 (%) and 112 (Rs) apply. Hard cap is the most anyone may give - not even an approver can lift it.
• Who decides: the Approve right on Cashier Special Discount Entry - never the person who asked, administrators included.
• An approval must be used within setting 227's hours or it lapses. One live request per bill. Withdraw cancels an unused request.
• Statuses: Open, On hold, Approved, Rejected, Cancelled, Lapsed. The Cash Discount Register report is the audit trail.

13Salary payment, draft receipts, CRM and GST returns #

Salary Payment

A salary payment is saved as a Draft; nothing is posted. Approve / Reject (F7) on Attendance & Payroll > Salary Payment posts it at once - one voucher debiting every employee and crediting the bank or cash ledger - and is final, except for Reverse, which cancels the entry and its voucher together. Approving, rejecting and reversing need the Approve right on the posting voucher type named in setting 210. Salary payments have no desk card; their requests reach approvers through the inbox and the bell.

Draft Receipts

A customer's payment on the portal is not written straight into the books: a draft receipt waits on Customer Portal > Draft Receipts until accounts has checked it against the bank. Click the row, set Status to Approved, pick the head of account the money reached, and press F5 (Approve & post). The receipt voucher is created and the payment is marked Posted. An approved draft is final.

CRM approvals

CRM approval workflows hold actions such as converting a lead, closing a deal as Won or Lost, or handing a record over. The requests are decided on CRM > CRM Approvals - Approve or Reject with a remark; the requester follows, resubmits or withdraws them there. They also ring the bell and are listed in the inbox; opening one takes you to CRM Approvals. The CRM guide explains them in full.

GST returns

A GST return submitted for approval climbs the levels named in GST Filing Settings - users or user groups, a group standing for whoever belongs to it at the moment of approval. Each level's approvers are told through the bell and the inbox; the return is decided in GST Returns.

14Who sees what #

• Inside the Approvals heading the menu ticks do not apply in either direction: a genuine approver sees the desk without a tick; a non-approver does not, even if ticked. Each desk keeps its own module, so an unlicensed module's desk is still hidden.
• Administrators, Global Administrators and Developers see the whole area.
• A desk added in future stays hidden until it declares who its approvers are.
• The inbox shows only your own rows - addressed to you or raised by you - taken from your sign-in; it is not cut by branch or report option.
• Voucher workflow rows are listed without the Workflow Management licence (they are somebody's history), but their Approve, Reject, Escalate and reading tools are not offered.
• Approval Alert Settings is for administrators only - those rows decide how long a request may sit before it is escalated.
• The two approval reports need the Approval Register report object.

15Settings that change how approvals behave #

16Approval reports #

Both are under Admin and open in the standard report viewer. They read the inbox itself, so every kind of approval is counted the same way.

• By approver, a request put to four people is four rows - each has it waiting. By module, branch or age band each request counts once, however many were asked. The head line says which rule is in force.
• Age is the request's own age, from when it was first raised.
• Each desk has its own audit report: Credit Approval Register (Reports), Cash Discount Register (Cashier). The Workflow reports cover voucher workflow steps in more detail.

17Moving from the desktop #

• The desktop had no single inbox and no bell. Each approval was found on its own screen - and the web still decides each kind there, by the same rules.
• The desktop's My Workflow list is replaced by the Approvals Inbox, where workflow steps are decided and read (instructions, documents, route, properties).
• Credit approvals are new: on the desktop the only way past a credit limit was to change the limit on the ledger.
• Employee claims: the desktop approved from the claim form's Change Status button; the web adds the approvals inbox and keeps the button on the request page.
• Leave: the desktop had only a manual SMS and e-mail button; the web also notifies by itself (payroll settings 193-198).
• Special discounts: the desktop limited status changes to a per-user number of days; the web decision does not apply that window.
• Draft receipts are approved through the same database routine the desktop draft-approval screen uses.

18If something does not work #

Each desk's Help panel lists every message it can show, with the cause and the fix.