Use Expense Approval Routing
Use Approval Routing to send expenses to specific approvers in your organization. Alongside creating rules, Approval Routing lets you route expenses by payment source, applicable users, amount, merchant, categories, and tags. Common use cases include:
- Reassign specific expenses to a different manager.
- Add one or more approvers for additional review.
If you prevent users from approving their own expenses, do not create an approval route that sends a user's expenses to that same user.
If the approver is both a manager and an admin, that approval is final. Emburse Spend requires only one layer of approval.
After a manager approves an expense, you cannot reassign it. The expense follows the approval route that was active at the time of approval, even if the expense changes later.
Assign to Manager Prior to Routing
Use Always assign expense to a user's manager prior to routing to control whether manager review happens before additional routing rules.
This toggle defaults to No.
- On: The expense routes to the submitter's primary manager first. After manager review, additional matching routing rules apply.
- Off: Additional routing rules can route the expense before the submitter's primary manager review.
If this toggle is off and an expense does not match any Approval Routing rule, the employee's manager still reviews the expense.
Create an Approval Route
-
Select Expense Policies in the Admin left navigation.
- In Expense Approval Routing, select ADD.
-
In the Create an Approval Route dialog, select an approver in the Approver dropdown.
Use the field reference below to configure the Create an Approval Route dialog.
| Section | What It Controls | What to Enter or Select | Required | Guidance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Approver | Sets who receives matching expenses first. | Select one approver. | Yes | If the approver is both a manager and an admin, that approver gives final approval. |
| Payment Source | Limits routing to selected payment methods. | Select one or more: reimbursable, virtual card, physical card. | Yes | Select multiple sources when one approver should review multiple payment types. |
| Applicable Users | Defines who the rule applies to. | Select Anyone or a specific scope such as user, department, location, office, or project. | Yes | Start with Anyone for broad routing, then narrow scope as needed. |
| Amount | Applies routing by amount threshold. | Select Any amount or Over. If you select Over, enter the threshold amount. | Yes | Use Over for escalation-style routing. |
| Merchant | Filters routing by vendor or merchant. | Select a merchant value. | No | Leave blank when merchant should not affect routing. |
| Categories | Filters routing by expense category. | Select one or more categories. | No | Leave blank to apply across categories. |
| Tags | Filters routing by expense field values. | Select relevant tags. | No | Use tags when routing depends on Expense Fields. |
- Configure the remaining fields based on the table above.
- Select PREVIEW RULE to review the criteria you configured and confirm the rule works as intended.
-
To update the rule, select REVISE. To save the rule, select CREATE RULE.
Emburse Spend creates the rule and enforces it based on your configuration.
Prioritize Approval Routing Rules
Emburse Spend evaluates rules from top to bottom in the Expense Approval Routing list.
An expense can match more than one rule. For example, a $500 expense can match both an over $100 rule and an over $250 rule. When this happens, the expense routes to both approvers in top-down order.
To prioritize rules:
- Select the grid handle to the left of a rule.
-
Drag the rule up or down to change its position.
Place the most specific or highest-priority rules near the top of the list.
Edit or Delete a Rule
To edit an existing rule, select the pencil next to the rule.
To delete a rule, select the trash can next to the rule.