In Spendesk, all approval workflows are managed via the visual workflow builder in:

Settings > Company Rules > Approval Workflows:

Using this flexible builder, you can create approval workflows based on a range of conditions to support a wide variety of use cases.

This section details the different options that you can configure on your workflow.

By default in all cases, a single node as shown (Default approvers) will exist. This is the catch-all option for any request that doesn't meet any other conditions.

It can be changed like any other node, to fit your desired logic for the 'default' case.

Each node is based on a specific condition type and a set of values. You can then define one or more amount thresholds for that node. Within each threshold, you can configure one or more approval steps and assign the relevant approvers.

A dimension can currently be based on:

Note that dimension availability is based on your plan, with only 'cost centre' being available to all plans. If you would like access to the additional dimensions, please contact Spendesk.

Once the dimension is set, you can select from the available values, which can be:

When All other values is selected, you can also include future values. This can be useful when, for example, a new spend type is introduced.

To reassign values to a node, open the node’s value list — you’ll see which values are already in use. Select the values you want to reassign, then click Save on the node. A confirmation dialog will appear to validate the change:

Thresholds allow you to apply different approval flows based on the amount of a request.

Select Add amount threshold in the approval panel to create a new threshold. You can then define the approval flow that applies to requests within that amount range.

You can configure an approval flow for Requests of any amount, or add amount thresholds such as:

Each threshold can contain one or more approval steps.

If no approval flow is configured for a branch, requests use the approval flow from the parent branch or the default approvers.

Each approval step defines who can approve the request at that stage of the workflow.

Approvers are the users or roles responsible for reviewing a request.

You can add one or more approvers to each approval step. Approvers can be configured as:

When multiple approvers are added to the same step, the step uses the Any of these approvers can approve logic. This means that only one of the listed approvers needs to approve the request.

The other approvers assigned to that step do not need to take action once one approver has completed the step.

If you want multiple people to approve the request, add each approver as a separate approval step. Separate steps are completed sequentially, from the first step to the last.

For middle nodes in a path, you may not need to configure an approval flow. In this case, the approval flow toggle can remain disabled.\

We highlight nodes without an approver so that you can easily identify them.

For nodes at the end of a path, we recommend enabling the approval flow and configuring the relevant thresholds, approval steps, and approvers.

In many cases approval roles can be used instead of specific approvers to create a more flexible setup that adapts to change sin your organisation.

The main approval roles are:

Cost centre owners are defined via the specific cost centre. A cost centre can have one primary owner and a number of co-owners however co-owners are not used at all by the approval logic when it comes to the 'cost centre owner' role. Cost centre owners also have visibility permissions, allowing them to view all expenses associated with their cost centre via the Payments tab. While co-owners do not influence approval logic, they share the visibility permissions of the primary owner.

This reporting manager role automatically identifies the current manager of the requestor and redirects the spend request to them for review. Team Managers, as reporting managers, can also view all expenses submitted by their direct reports. This visibility extends through the Payments tab, offering comprehensive oversight of team expenditures.

The reporting manager of an employee can be set in 2 ways:

An extended view lets you preview the entire approval scheme at a glance, with approval scheme details visible directly on each node— no need to click into each node for details:

To quickly navigate to a node, you can use the 'search' feature at the top of the workflow builder:

For example, if you're looking for a node for the Product cost centre, just enter 'Product' into the search bar and it will automatically jump to the node and expand the edit panel. If multiple matches are found, these will be shown next to the search bar for you to move between.

You can also search for an approver by name and easily see all the nodes where that approver is assigned:

You can easily "undo" and "redo" your actions thanks to the buttons on the right to help prevent mistakes:

There are a number of constraints and other rules in Spendesk which should be noted when understanding approval workflows:

In order to ensure that all requests have a single valid approval path, there is one notable constraint: each branch/layer can only apply to a single dimension.

This means that if you add a node for 'spend type', then all sibling nodes in that branch must also be spend type. However you can mix within a layer for different paths, see this valid example below:

Our first layer is 'spend type' but from there we have 2 paths, one which uses 'cost centre' as the second layer, and the other which uses the 'project code' custom field.

This logic is to avoid cases where someone can approve their own requests.

When the same person appears as an approver in more than one threshold (either by name or through a role such as cost centre owner), their approval counts toward every threshold where they are listed. This can result in a request being approved before all steps in the current threshold are completed, if the approvals already given are enough to complete all steps in another threshold.

Workflow logic can be viewed as a decision tree that can be read from left to right in the builder. This section explains how to build an approval workflow from scratch.

Your workflow starts with a Default approvers node. This is the catch-all option for requests that do not match any other condition.

Select the Default approvers node to define the approval flow for these requests.

You can also customise the default approval flow by configuring its amount thresholds, approval steps, and approvers.

To add a condition, select the + next to If, then select the dimension for the condition.

In this example, we select Spend type and assign two values:

These spend types will follow the same approval workflow.

If you want to configure a different workflow for another spend type, such as Invoice, create another node at the same level and assign the relevant value to it.

To add another layer of conditions, select the + next to the relevant node.

For the next layer, select a new dimension.

For this example: Cost centre is the dimension and Customer Success Operations the value.

The workflow will now apply only if:

Configure approvers for Requests of any amount, or select Add amount threshold if you want the approval logic to depend on the request amount.

Within each threshold:

In this example, the approval workflow is configured as follows:

For requests up to €1,000:

For requests above €1,000:

When migrating your existing workflow to the approval builder, you'll be presented with your existing logic with some differences:
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For example:

Firstly, we recommend reviewing your existing nodes (in the example above it's 'product' and 'marketing') to see if you want to combine them using roles instead of specific assignees.

If you have access to the new dimensions, you'll be able to introduce these in a couple of ways:

Looking at the new builder and dimensions, you may decide you want to just start over and design it from scratch. Note this will cause some temporary disruption as all requests will be routed to the 'default approvers' node, but the easiest way is to just delete the 'spend type' node and start from clean, designing your perfect flow.