After you submit an invoice to the approval process using the “Submit” button, it appears with the status “In approval”.
Two options are now available in the details window:
Approve:
Click “Approve”to release the invoice. It then moves to the next step of the workflow and can be prepared for payment or marked as paid.Reject:
The invoice is removed from the approval process and gets the status “Rejected” in the Bills overview. Rejected invoices can be restored if needed. After restoring, the invoice appears in the “New” widget and can be submitted again.
If you have defined an approval policy (add-on option) , each submitted invoice first goes through the approval process.
Depending on the configuration (e.g. approval by a single person or by several users), the invoice must be approved before it can be processed further.
Included in the Professional & Enterprise Edition. Also available as an add-on option for the Business Edition - contact support .
To create a new policy:
In the “Bills” area, go to the “Approval Policies”tab.
Click the “Create”button.
Define conditions for approval policies
When creating an approval policy, you can specify the conditions under which an invoice must be submitted for approval. This is done by selecting one or more condition types.
This lets you automatically control which invoices must be approved by whom before they are forwarded for payment. These policies are based on conditions you define and are tailored to your team.
Naming policies
Give each approval policy a meaningful name.
There is no automatic check for duplicate names; several policies can have the same name. In the invoice overview, it is then not possible to tell which rule was applied.
Use clear, distinguishable names, for example:
Level 0 – up to €2,000
Level 1 – €2,000 to €10,000
Level 2 - from €10,000
Assignment to users
Approval can only be given by users who have been invited in COMMITLY under “Settings -> Team”.
Any user can approve the invoice if they are selected as the responsible person in the policy.
If there is no approval policy, any user can approve the invoice.
Approval flow
When creating a policy, the approval flow can be selected:
Single user
One person must approve the invoice.Any user from the list
A group of people is defined. The minimum number of required approvals must be specified (e.g. “at least 1 of 2 team leads”).
Users one by one
Several users can be selected. All selected users should approve the invoice.
Simple approval policies
All listed people can approve in parallel .
It is sufficient if at least one of the authorized people approves the invoice (depending on the setting).
Suitable for simple approval processes
Create multi-step approvals
Approvals are given one after another (sequentially).
Only when the first step is completed is the next step triggered.
Ideal for multi-level approval chains
In this example, we show how to set up a corporate policy with three approval levels:
If the amount is less than €2,000.
Approval flow: Users from list: e.g. Katharina Stankova or Ermira Morina
Number of required approvals: 1 (one of the two is enough)
We click "Add approval step" to define the next step.
If the amount is in the range of €2,000 – €10,000.
Approval flow: Single user, e.g. Jürgen Eger.
Invoices from €2,000, which may no longer be approved by Ermira or Katharina alone, must additionally be approved by Jürgen Eger.
We click "Add approval step" to define the last step.
If the invoice is over €10,000, there is no longer an amount restriction – “ELSE”. This automatically applies to everything over €10,000
Approval flow: Single user, e.g. Jürgen Fae
Invoices over €10,000 must additionally be approved by Jürgen Fae. Finally, the approval policy is saved.
The same applies here: The previous steps must be completedbefore step 3 is reached.
Each level is processed sequentially. The invoice only gets the status “To be paid”, once all required approvals have been given.