Tutorial
How to:
Set up a multidimensional approval process in 30 minutes
@ApprovalMax
Konstantin Bredyuk, CEO and Co- Founder, ApprovalMax As an experienced BPM expert, Konstantin has a strong focus on design and development of Business Applications which support Human Workflows. He is Co-Founder and CEO at ApprovalMax, known for simple and easy to configure approval workflows in finance.
Any approval process that involves more than one Approver or particular criteria for designated Approvers will benefit from being automated – with clearly defined authorisation levels, specific conditions for Approver selection, and proper routing of approval requests...
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asic authorisations, for instance, may include three approval tiers: manager-, department-, and executivelevel. Plus a variety of options to tailor the process, depending on the organisation’s business process specifics and regulatory requirements. For each authorisation level (i.e. approval step) there can be a number of additional criteria for the selection of Approvers. You can also use the custom Tracking Category field in Xero to set up approvals by Department, Region, etc. The approval workflow app ApprovalMax is pre-integrated with Xero. It provides key capabilities that allow the flexible definition of authorisation levels, the assignment of designated Approvers, and fully automated routing of approval requests. As ApprovalMax is pre-integrated with Xero, the setup of approval workflows for any kind of finance document processed in Xero (Purchase Orders, Bills, Credit Notes, Sales Invoices, etc.) is quick and easy. Master data used in Xero, such as Region, Cost category, Supplier, Amount, etc., serve 30 / Issue 15
as parameters for the Approver selection. How it works First, connecting ApprovalMax to Xero makes all information contained in the connected Xero Organisation available for the approval process. Next, the Administrator selects one of the pre-built approval workflows (e.g. Bill Review and Approval, Purchase Order Approval, Sales Invoice Approval) and sets up a sequence of approval steps that reflect the required authorisation levels. Within each approval step, the approval matrix allows the Administrator to select Approvers and define approval conditions for each Approver based on the data pulled from Xero. Once the Administrator has set up and activated the approval workflow, the respective Approvers can approve and reject approval requests: either directly in ApprovalMax or from the email notification on their phone. All approval-related information is provided to the Approver as part
of the request; for example, the original invoice scan in addition to the digital version and the history log of decisions by other Approvers including their comments. Advanced options include the ability to leave a comment in the approval request, set a Default Approver, delegate the approval decision, and add an Approver to an approval step. Example approval scenario Here’s how a basic authorisation scenario looks: let’s assume we need three authorisation levels (department, finance/CFO, and CEO) for incoming Bills addressed to the departments of Marketing, Sales, or Operations – which are located in various geographical regions. Bill approval requests need to be routed to the appropriate managers, e.g. Sales Bills to the Head of Sales. If a certain amount threshold is exceeded, subsequent routing to obtain the finance/CFO approval will be required. It is important that the finance/CFO approvals are requested only after the business approval has been
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