Configuring Approval Chains

Approval chains define rules for who needs to approve payments before they are sent to the bank.

On payment creation all approval chains are evaluated and if the trigger conditions are met, the approval steps are added to the payment.
When changes are made to approval chains the new behaviour will only be used for new payments, existing payments will not have their steps updated.

Configuring Approval Chains

Before configuring approval chains, we recommend reading the extended explanations to approval chains below.

1. Navigate to the Atlar dashboard -> Approvals -> Approval chains
2. Click Create new in the top right corner
3. Configuring the approval chain:
   1. Give the approval chain a name to easier identify the different approval chains, for example First level approver or Approval from finance team
   2. Set the trigger condition(s) (amount, role and/or entity)
   3. Set the type (automatic or with approval step(s))
   4. Create the approval chain

The approval chain is now set up and working.

Trigger Conditions

There are a few options for trigger conditions to control if a chain should be used for a payment. All configured trigger conditions must pass for the chain to be used.

Role

The condition will pass if the user creating the payment is member In or Not in any of the provided roles. You can select if you want to include or exclude roles by setting the rule to In/Not in.

Entity

The entity trigger condition is used to trigger on payments of accounts that belong or not belong to provided entities.
Credit transfers from an account that belongs In or Not in the provided entities. You can select if you want to include or exclude entities by setting the rule to In/Not in.
Direct debits to an account that belongs In or Not in the provided entities. You can select if you want to include or exclude entities by setting the rule to In/Not in.

Amount (less than)

Use to limit what amounts that trigger the approval chain.

• Amount value: Payments below this amount will trigger the chain.
• Currency: The currency of the amount.
• Currency conversion: Convert currency when comparing amount. Let payments in other currencies be compared to the trigger amount. At the point of payment creation the latest exchange rate will be used.

Note about multiple chains configured with identical trigger conditions except amount value.

If multiple chains match and the only difference is the amount value, the chain with the lowest matching amount value will be used.

Type

Choose between two types of approval chains. Either no approval steps are added and the payment is approved automatically or approval will be needed by one or more roles.

Automatic approval

The payment will be automatically approved if the trigger conditions are met.

Approval steps

Control who needs to and can approve the payment.

• Approver role: One of the provided roles need to approve this step.
• Allow creator approval: Allow approval by the user creating this payment if it has a role required for this step. By default this is not allowed to conform with a four-eyes principle where approval by another person is required.

Fallback Approval Chain

As a safeguard, a fallback approval chain exists. It will be used if no other chain trigger conditions are met.
Only the steps can be updated and the default configuration is to require the owner role to approve each payment.