During the approval process, emails are sent automatically to the people involved when the status of an expense changes. Who is notified depends on whether approvers are assigned to the employee and whether the expense is entered by the employee or by a deputy.
Every email is sent in the recipient's language and contains a link to log in.
In this article, Accounting refers to all administrators and account owners who have the Receive email when expense is approved (e.g. accounting) permission enabled (see Roles/Permissions). They receive an email every time an expense is fully approved, with the remarks for accounting and a note that the expense can now be exported.
The following examples show the most important scenarios.
Case 1: Employee without an approver
No approver is assigned to the employee. The employee can therefore approve their entered expenses directly.
Upon approval, an additional person, such as Accounting, can optionally be notified by email.
Case 2: Employee with one or more approvers
The employee is assigned one or more approvers. When the employee submits an expense, its status changes to under review.
The assigned approvers receive an email informing them that an expense is awaiting review.
If multiple approvers are assigned, the approval rule determines when the expense is approved:
- One approval is sufficient: Approval by one of the approvers is sufficient.
- All must approve: The expense is only approved after the last approval. If one approver approves and others are still missing, no email is sent.
Expense is approved
When the expense is approved, the employee receives an email notification listing all approvers and their remarks. An additional person, such as Accounting, can optionally be notified of the approval.
Expense is rejected
If an approver rejects the expense, its status changes to rejected, even if other approvers have already approved it. The employee is notified of the rejection by email, including the reason.
The employee can make the necessary changes and then submit the expense again. Its status then changes back to under review.
Case 3: Expense entered by a deputy
The employee is assigned one or more approvers. However, the expense is entered by a deputy rather than by the employee.
The employee's approval workflow still applies. Once submitted, the expense is sent to the employee's approvers for review.
By default, communication during the approval process takes place between the deputy and the employee's approvers. The employee does not initially receive an email.
If the Also notify about status changes by deputies option is enabled for the employee, the employee additionally receives notifications about the corresponding status changes.
Expense is approved
When one of the approvers approves the expense, the deputy is notified of the approval.
If the Also notify about status changes by deputies option is enabled, the employee also receives a notification.
An additional person, such as Accounting, can optionally be notified of the approval.
Expense is rejected
If an approver rejects the expense, the deputy is notified of the rejection.
If the Also notify about status changes by deputies option is enabled, the employee also receives a corresponding notification.
Case 4: Deputy is also an approver
The deputy enters an expense for an employee and is also one of the approvers assigned to that employee.
In this case, the deputy's submission counts as their approval.
- One approval is sufficient, or the deputy is the only approver: Nobody else is missing. Instead of Submit for review, the Approve dialog opens and the expense is approved immediately.
- All must approve, with further approvers: The expense goes under review. The remaining approvers receive an email stating that the expense has been submitted and thereby approved by the deputy, and who is still pending. After that, the process continues as in case 3.
Upon approval, an additional person, such as Accounting, can optionally be notified by email.
Other cases
- Submitting several trips at once: The approvers receive one combined email, for example “… has submitted 2 trips for approval”.
- Approving several expenses at once: With One approval is sufficient, the employee and accounting receive one combined email. With All must approve, a separate email is sent for each fully approved expense.
- Approval by a change in the administration: If an expense is approved because an administrator changed the approval rule or removed an approver, the employee and accounting receive one email per expense listing the approvers of the review round.
- Taking an expense back: If an employee takes a submitted expense back via Edit again, no email is sent.
- New user: When a user is invited or invited again via Invite again, they receive an email with the link to activate their account (see Administration).
Summary of notifications
- Without an approver: The employee approves their expense directly. Accounting can optionally be notified.
- With an approver: The assigned approvers are notified when a new expense has the status under review. The employee receives a notification when the expense is approved or rejected. With All must approve, only once all approvers have approved or one has rejected.
- Expense entered by a deputy: Notifications about approval or rejection are sent to the deputy by default.
- If Also notify about status changes by deputies is enabled, the employee also receives the emails about submission, approval and rejection. If it is disabled, the employee does not receive any email about these expenses.
- If the deputy is also assigned as an approver, their submission counts as their approval.
For more information about the review and approval process, see the Approval workflow article.