Workflow & Approvals

Plan availability: approval workflows depend on your subscription. If you don't see the workflow pages under Settings, your plan may not include them — see Subscriptions & billing, or ask your workspace owner.

Approvals add a review step before things become final. Instead of any user posting a document directly, the document sits at Pending Approval and an approver signs off first — financial control without locking everyone out of creating documents. While a document is pending approval, posting is blocked: it stays visible, but nothing hits your accounts until an approver acts.

Where approvals apply today

Approval steps are built into the features where sign-off matters most:

Quotes — a quote can require internal approval before it moves forward. An allowed user clicks Approve Quote; a quote a customer has accepted but that still awaits internal sign-off shows as Accepted awaiting approval. Staff can also record the customer's decision with Mark as Accepted / Mark as Rejected — rejection asks for the method, the customer contact, and a reason, and you confirm with Confirm Rejection. Some actions (such as emailing the quote) are unavailable until the quote reaches the right status. See Quotes.
Fixed assets — acquisitions, disposals, and transfers can each require approval. The user clicks Submit for Approval; the request appears on the approver's Pending Approvals page with Approve and Reject buttons (rejection asks for a Rejection reason). While an acquisition is pending: "Posting is blocked until an approver reviews the request." Once approved, the asset is ready for its next lifecycle step. See Fixed assets.
Timesheets and mileage — submitted entries go to an approver before they can be billed or counted in project cost. Rejecting sends the entry back to Draft with a note so the submitter can fix and resubmit. See Timesheets and Mileage.
Rental leases — a new lease is a draft that must be submitted for approval and approved before it can be activated. See Rental properties & leases.

In each case, only users allowed to approve see the Approve button. If a document is stuck pending, ask your workspace administrator who your approvers are.

The statuses you'll see

Pending Approval — submitted and waiting for an approver. The document is read-only for accounting purposes; it cannot be posted, and depending on the document some actions (like sending) are unavailable.
Approved — an approver signed off. The document can now be posted, activated, or moved to its next step.
Rejected — the approver declined, with a reason. Depending on the document, it returns for correction (timesheets go back to Draft; a quote records the customer's rejection).

Settings

Two related pages live under Settings → Workflows & Automation:

Approval Workflow — the home for multi-level approval rules for documents. This configuration screen is not yet available ("Approval workflow configuration is coming soon"); the built-in approval steps above work today without configuration here.
Sales Workflow — controls the shape of your sales pipeline, not approvals. Its one setting, Require Sales Orders before invoicing, decides whether quotes must be converted to a Sales Order before an invoice: "When enabled, quotes must be converted to Sales Orders before invoicing. You can still create Sales Orders directly." Only the organization owner can change this setting — click Save Settings to apply. See Sales orders.

Example

Al Noor Trading requires sign-off on asset purchases. Sara registers a new delivery van in the fixed asset register and clicks Submit for Approval. The request appears on the finance manager's Pending Approvals page. Until he clicks Approve, the asset cannot post or start depreciating. He reviews the linked bill, approves it, and the asset becomes Active. Had something been wrong, he'd click Reject with a reason, and Sara would correct the details and submit again.

Common problems

"I don't see an Approve button." Only users allowed to approve that document type see it. Ask your workspace administrator.
"My document is stuck at Pending Approval." No approver has acted on it. Find out who your approvers are — and make sure at least one active user has approval rights.
"I can't post / send while waiting." That's the point of the gate — posting is blocked until an approver reviews the request. Chase the approval rather than working around it.
"I want approval rules on invoices and bills with thresholds." Multi-level document approval rules aren't configurable yet — the Approval Workflow settings page will host them when they arrive. The built-in gates above are what's available today.