How do I set up an approval workflow?

An admin sets up approval workflows in Settings > Approvals. Each workflow covers a range of bill amounts, for example $5,000 to $30,000. It lists who has to approve those bills, in order, and who can pay them once they're approved. Bills whose amount falls in the range wait for approval before anyone can pay them.

Before you start

• You need to be an admin. Anyone else sees "Only admins can manage approval workflows."
• The people you want as approvers need to be on your team with a role that can approve bills. Cleo Pay's Approver and Payer roles both can. See Invite your team and choose roles.

Add a workflow

1. Click Settings in the sidebar, then Approvals.
2. Click Add Workflow.
3. Next to "If amount is greater or equal to", enter the lowest bill amount this workflow covers. Enter the highest amount after "and less than".
4. Under Approval Steps, click Add Step.
5. Choose who approves this step. Either tick Any Admin or Member with Permission, or pick people under Team Members, roles under Roles, or both.
6. Click Add Step again for each extra round of approval.
7. Under Payment Authorization, choose who can pay these bills once they're approved, the same way.
8. Click Create Workflow.

You'll see "Approval workflow created successfully". The workflow applies to bills added from then on.

How steps work

Steps run in order. Step 2 doesn't start until step 1 is approved.

If a step lists several people or roles, one approval from any of them completes the step. That's why the page joins them with "OR". Admins can approve any step.

The Team Members and Roles lists only show people and roles that are allowed to do that step: approve for an approval step, pay for Payment Authorization.

Amount limits

Because workflows can't share an end amount, start the next one a cent higher. If one ends at $5,000, start the next at $5,000.01. A bill for exactly $5,000 uses the first one.

A bill outside every range doesn't go through a workflow. See How bill approvals work for what happens to it.

Edit or delete a workflow

Click Edit on a workflow to change its steps or who's on them. You can't change its amounts. To cover a different range, delete the workflow and add a new one.

Changes only apply to bills added after you save. Bills already waiting keep the steps they started with.

To delete, click Delete, then Yes, delete. Bills already in that workflow aren't affected.

What happens when no workflow matches

While you have no workflows, the page shows a Default Invoice Handling card. It controls what happens to invoices vendors send you through Cleo Pay when no workflow matches:

1. Click Manage.
2. Choose Send directly to payment or Mark as blocked.
3. Click Update.

Bills you add yourself go straight to payment either way. The card only appears while you have no workflows, so choose before you add your first one. To change it later, email support@cleo-pay.com.

Add an approver to one bill

An admin can add an extra approver to a single bill. The bill can't be paid until that person approves it, even if it already passed its workflow.

1. Open the bill from Pay.
2. On the Details tab, find the Approvers row and click Add approver.
3. Pick one or more teammates.
4. If you want them to get an email about it, tick Email this person the invoice details.
5. Click Assign.

You can do this while a bill is a draft, Awaiting Approval or Awaiting Payment. If it was Awaiting Payment, it goes back to Awaiting Approval. To add the same approver to several bills, select the bills in the list and click Assign approver. To take someone off a bill, click the X next to their name.

You can turn this off for your whole account with the Assign approvers to an invoice switch at the top of Settings > Approvals. It's on by default.

If something doesn't work

If you get an error saving a workflow, check that your amounts don't overlap another workflow and that every step has someone on it. If it still won't save, email support@cleo-pay.com with the amount range, the steps you wanted and the exact error message.