Approval Management
The Approval Management module controls how important business transactions are reviewed and authorized before they are completed. It ensures that sensitive documents — such as Item Transfers, Purchase Orders, Bills, and other configured transactions — follow your organization's approval workflow.
Instead of every transaction being approved by the same person, the approval process can be divided into multiple stages, with each stage handled by a different department or responsible individual.
Core components
The module is built around four components that work together. Each one depends on the previous being configured first — a transaction cannot enter the approval process unless all four are set up in the correct sequence.
Component | Answers the question |
|---|---|
Approval Levels | Who approves, and in what order? |
Approval Strategies | How are those approvers grouped into a workflow? |
Approval Criteria | When should that workflow apply? |
Approval Requests | What is currently waiting for a decision? |
Approval Levels
Approval Levels define the sequence of approval a transaction must pass through before it is considered fully approved. Each level represents one stage in the workflow and normally corresponds to a department, team, or organizational responsibility.
Typical approval levels include:
Administration
Finance
Procurement
Operations
Executive Management
Each approval level contains one or more approvers authorized to review and decide on transactions reaching that stage.
Single-level approval
When only one approval level exists, every transaction requiring approval is routed directly to it.
The transaction becomes fully approved immediately after approval is granted at that single level.
Multi-level approval
Organizations often require sign-off from multiple departments before a transaction can proceed. In this case, several approval levels are chained together.
How a multi-level approval progresses
Each approval level must complete its review before the request moves to the next level.
If approval is rejected at any level, the workflow stops immediately and the transaction is not processed further, unless corrective action is taken.
Once every level has approved, the transaction becomes fully authorized.
This sequential approach ensures each department reviews only the transactions relevant to its responsibility, while maintaining accountability throughout the process.
Approval Strategies
Approval Strategies group one or more approval levels into a single approval workflow. While approval levels identify who participates, approval strategies determine how those levels are organized for a particular business process — acting as the bridge between approval levels and approval criteria.
An organization might create different strategies for different operational needs, for example:
Purchase Request Approval Strategy
Purchase Order Approval Strategy
Inventory Adjustment Approval
Each strategy can include a different combination of levels depending on the complexity and risk of the transaction it governs.
Approval Criteria
Approval Criteria determine when an approval strategy should be applied to a transaction. Rather than sending every transaction through the same process, criteria evaluate each transaction against predefined conditions — and when those conditions are met, the associated strategy is triggered automatically.
Threshold-based criteria
The most common criteria are financial thresholds, such as a minimum or maximum transaction amount:
Transaction Amount | Approval Required |
|---|---|
30,000 TZS | No |
500,000 TZS | Yes |
Custom criteria
Approval criteria are not limited to transaction amounts. The module also supports custom business rules through scripts, letting organizations implement advanced conditions tailored to their operations, such as approval based on:
Item category
Store location
Supplier type
Document type
Inventory classification
Any other condition implemented through a custom script
Linking criteria to documents
Once defined, approval criteria are linked to an approval strategy and associated with a specific document type, such as Purchase Order or Bill.
What happens when a document is created
A document of the configured type (e.g. Purchase Order) is created.
The system evaluates the configured criteria against the transaction.
If the transaction satisfies the conditions, the corresponding approval strategy is activated.
An approval request is generated automatically.
Approval Requests
Approval Requests are the active approval tasks generated once a transaction meets the configured approval criteria. Every document requiring authorization is converted into a request and routed through the approval levels defined in its associated strategy.
The Approval Requests section is the central workspace for monitoring, reviewing, approving, cancelling, and delegating approval activities.
Request information
Each request contains the following information, so approvers and supervisors can track the approval process from initiation to completion:
Column | Description |
|---|---|
Approvable Type | The type of document requiring approval, such as an Item Transfer, Purchase Order, or Bill |
Created Date | The date and time the approval request was generated |
Created By | The user who created the original transaction |
Description | A brief summary describing the transaction awaiting approval |
Status | The current approval status — Waiting, Approved, or Cancelled |
Approved By | The individual who approved the transaction once the process is complete |
Allowed To Approve At This State | The approval level or designated approvers currently authorized to decide |
Request views
To simplify approval management, requests are organized into three views:
Contains all approval requests currently awaiting action at the active approval level. Only requests that have reached the current stage appear here.
As each level completes its review, the request automatically progresses to the next configured level until the process is complete. This view represents the current workload awaiting action.
A personal approval history — every request already processed by the logged-in approver, whether approved or rejected.
Provides a historical record of decisions for future reference and accountability.
A complete history of every approval request generated within the organization, across every approval level and document type, regardless of who performed the approval.
Supports auditing, reporting, compliance monitoring, and organizational oversight by presenting the full approval lifecycle of every transaction.
Approval Actions
When a request reaches the appropriate approval level, the following actions may be available, depending on organizational policy and the transaction's current status.
Approve
Confirms that the transaction satisfies all required business, operational, and organizational requirements.
If additional approvals remain, the request automatically progresses to the next level.
If the approved level is the final level in the strategy, the transaction becomes fully approved and the workflow is completed.
Cancel
Indicates the transaction does not meet the required approval conditions, or contains issues that prevent authorization.
Delegate
Temporarily transfers approval responsibility from one authorized approver to another, without interrupting the workflow. This is valuable during annual leave, official travel, training, illness, or any other situation where the assigned approver is unavailable.
Delegation keeps important processes moving while maintaining a complete audit trail of who handled each approval.
A delegation record typically contains:
Field | Description |
|---|---|
Delegate From | The original approver whose responsibility is being transferred |
Delegate To | The authorized individual receiving temporary approval authority |
Start Date | The date and time the delegation becomes effective |
End Date | The date and time the delegation expires; responsibility automatically reverts if the request is still pending |
Reason | The justification for the delegation, for transparency and audit purposes |
Overall workflow
From configuration to a fully authorized transaction
Approval Levels are created to define the sequence of approvers.
Approval Strategies group those levels into a complete approval workflow.
Approval Criteria define the conditions under which a strategy applies, and associate it with specific document types.
When a transaction satisfies the configured criteria, an Approval Request is generated automatically.
The request progresses through each approval level in sequence until it is approved, cancelled, or delegated.
Once all required levels have granted approval, the transaction is fully authorized and the approval process is complete.
This layered approach provides flexibility, accountability, and control — enabling organizations to implement approval processes that align with operational policy while maintaining complete visibility and traceability throughout the approval lifecycle.