Guides

Configuring Approval Chains

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

On payment creation, all approval chains are evaluated, and if the conditions for an approval chain are met, the approval steps are added to the payment. This means that a single payment could trigger multiple approval chains.

When changes are made to approval chains, the new behavior will only be used for new payments. Existing payments will not have their steps updated.

Configuring Approval Chains

  1. Navigate to Approvals -> Approval chains
  2. In the top right corner, click Actions -> Create Approval chain
  3. Configure the approval chain
    1. Give the approval chain a name to easily identify it, for example Manual payments or Internal transfers.
    2. Optionally Define approval conditions for when this approval chain should be triggered. It could for example be when the payment is created by a user with a certain role, when the payment is for a certain entity, or if it's an internal transfer.
    3. Continue by clicking Select approval steps.
  4. Configure approval steps
    1. Select Automatic approval if no approvals are required.
    2. Select the Currency for the approval limits. Payments in other currencies will be converted to this currency when evaluating approval limits. The exchange rate at the time of payment creation will be used.
    3. Select the number of Required approvals needed.
    4. For each approval, select the roles that users are required to have in order to approve payments up to a certain amount limit. At least one role is required for approving up to unlimited amount. Additional limits can be added by clicking Add approval limit.
    5. Optionally add an Automatic approval limit if payments with amounts below a certain amount don't require approvals.
    6. Click Review Approval chain, and then Create Approval chain, if it looks correct.
  5. The approval chain is now set up and will be evaluated against any new payment created.

Approval Conditions

There are a few options for conditions to control if a chain should be triggered for a payment. All configured conditions must be met for the chain to be applied to a payment.

Creator role

The condition is met if the role that the user creating the payment has Is or Is not any of the specified roles.

Entity

The entity condition is used to trigger on payments of accounts that belong or not belong to specified entities.
Credit transfers from an account that belongs to an entity which Is or Is not any of the specified entities.
Direct debits to an account that belongs to an entity which IS or Is not any of the specified entities.

Type of payment

Used to only trigger the approval chain for either credit transfers or direct debits.

Internal transfer / External payment

Used to only trigger the approval chain for ether internal transfers or external payments.

Type

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

Automatic approval

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

Approval steps

Control who are required to and can approve the payment.

  • Roles: A user with one of the provided roles is required to approve this step.
  • Allow creator approval: Allow approval by the user creating this payment if the user 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 triggered if no other approval chain's conditions are met.
Only the approval steps can be updated and the default configuration is to require the owner role to approve each payment.

Approval Chain Examples

Below are a few examples of various Approval chains. If you have any questions on how to best configure your own approval chains you can reach out to your dedicated Delivery Manager or drop us a message here.

Approval Chain with Approval Limits

The above approval chain applies to all payments and requires one approver for all payments above 10 000 EUR. In the first step we defined that the approval chain should apply to "All Payments" and in the second step we define the approval limits:

  • All payments below 10 000 EUR are automatically approved and as such would be automatically processed
  • All payments above 10 000 EUR but below 100 000 EUR require approval from “Treasury analyst”, "Head of Treasury" or "CFO"
  • All payments above 100 000 EUR but below 250 000 EUR require approval from “Head of Treasury” or "CFO"
  • All payments above 250 000 EUR require approval from “CFO”

Approval Chain with Approval Conditions (Entity)

The above approval chain applies to all payments initiated via the entity "Demo Sweden AB". In the first step we define the approval conditions where the entity = "Demo Sweden AB". In the second step we define what approval limits should apply for the approval chain:

  • All payments initiated via Entity Demo Sweden AB where all payments below 100 000 SEK requires approval from "Treasury team"
  • All payments initiated via Entity Demo Sweden AB where all payments above 100 000 SEK requires approval from "CFO"

The approval conditions can be combined in various ways to support the needs of your organization. For example, one might add multiple approval conditions based on entity, type of transfer, creator role, internal transfer and/or external payment to create an approval chain that applies only in those certain instances.

Approval Chain with Approval Conditions (ERP initiated payments)

The approval chains also supports the instance where payments are initiated from a different system, for example via the ERP. In those cases, a different approval chain can be established. In the above approval chain all payments initiated via NetSuite are always approved by the "owner", regardless of the amount. The approval chain can, as with other instances, have additional approval conditions or approval limits with various approvers.

Approval chains similar to the above can also be established if payments are initiated from other systems than the ERP, for example your own BackOffice tool or similar where payments are initiated via the Atlar API.

Note: when establishing an approval chain as the above it is important to also exclude the above mentioned role in other approval chains if the aim is to separate for example the ERP payments with payments initiated directly in Atlar.

Updated 9 days ago