Set up approval workflows

How workflows work

Approvals live in Settings, Spend controls, Approvals. Each kind of spend has its own list here: card charges, reimbursements, bills and more. A workflow is a set of rules for one kind of spend. Summit checks your workflows from top to bottom and uses the first one that matches a charge. So put your most specific workflows at the top. The default, Everything else, is your catch-all for whatever is left.

Create a workflow

Click New workflow and choose Card charge workflow. First, choose when it applies. You can use an amount range, GL accounts, departments, projects, locations and cards. Leave cards unticked to cover every card. For example: card charges over one thousand dollars on the field operations card. Then click the approval step and choose who approves. Submitter's manager sends it to the cardholder's manager. Specific user names one person. Anyone with role sends it to, say, any Manager. If a step has several approvers, choose whether any one, all, or some of them must approve, and whether they're asked all at once or one at a time. Under Workflow settings you can auto-approve card charges under an amount when they have a receipt, and pick a fallback for when a step finds nobody to ask. Then click Create workflow. Workflows with more than one step are included on the Professional plan and up. One rule to remember: approvers must have the Manager or Admin role. A Member named as an approver can't open the Approvals page.

Test routing

Before you rely on it, click Test routing. Enter a sample charge and check that it lands on the workflow and the person you expect. It's the quickest way to catch a workflow that's in the wrong order.

Cover for people who are away

On the Delegation tab, click Add cover. Choose who's away, who stands in, and the first and last day. Their approvals go to the stand-in for those days, and come back when they return.

Approval settings

Last, the Settings tab. Four settings are worth a look. Hold exports until someone approves keeps spend that no workflow covers out of accounting until someone approves it. Ask for a note on every approval makes approvers write a short reason each time. Default deadline sets how long a step can wait before it's overdue. And If coding changes after approval decides what happens when someone recodes an approved charge: do nothing, send it back for approval, or lock coding once it's approved. Then send your approvers the approver training video, and you're live.