Approvals are where finance control, operational reality and user experience all collide. If your current workflow setup is rigid, hard to maintain or spread across emails and spreadsheets, this session shows what a modern, fully configurable approval engine looks like inside AccountsIQ.

In “The New Workflow Experience in AccountsIQ”, the product team walk through the brand-new workflow engine, from strategy and discovery through to practical, in-product configuration.

The presenters explain how an extensive discovery phase with customers and partners shaped the design goals:

• High flexibility – to support very different industries and approval cultures
• Scalability – so growing businesses can evolve their workflows without reinventing them
• Stronger controls – especially around segregation of duties, PO–invoice matching and auditability
• Minimal disruption – letting you move from the legacy engine to the new one at your own pace

From there, the webinar moves into the product and demonstrates the three core configuration areas now available under Settings → Setup:

1. Approval Settings – global behaviour:
   • Turn on exact PI–PO matching (or allow controlled variance)
   • Decide whether invoice values must never exceed approved PO totals
   • Configure tolerances for re-approval (by net, gross or % difference)
   • Set an Approver Admin email to receive alerts when something needs intervention
2. Approver Setup – who can approve and how:
   • Approvers are system users (typically Business user type, not necessarily Finance)
   • Add job titles and mark an approver as a budget holder (so they receive budget snapshots in approval emails)
   • Configure substitutes:
     • Choose another approver
     • Set from/to dates
     • All items that would have gone to the original approver during that period are automatically rerouted
   • Enforce segregation of duties with “designated approver”:
     • If someone creates a PO or invoice that would normally route to them, it’s automatically redirected to another approver
   • Set notification preferences: email, mobile app, or both
3. Workflow Setup – the “brain” of approvals:
   • Create named workflows (e.g. “Finance Department – POs”, “Services – Non-PO Invoices”)
   • Choose which processes a workflow applies to:
     • Purchase Orders
     • PO Invoices (invoices linked to a PO)
     • Non-PO Invoices (e.g. utilities, ad-hoc operating costs without a PO)
   • Define auto-approval thresholds (e.g. auto-approve anything under £50)
   • Configure re-approval tolerances, so small differences (e.g. carriage) don’t always force a full re-approval

The heart of the session is a deep dive into approval steps:

• Each workflow can have unlimited steps (e.g. Manager → Financial Controller → CFO).
• Each step has:
  • A name (e.g. “Finance Manager”, “Services Manager”, “CEO Approval”)
  • One or more approvers with limit ranges:
    • Limit From is automatically set to “auto-approval + 0.01”
    • Limit To is defined by you (e.g. 2,000; 10,000; unlimited)
  • Rule criteria that determine when this step is used:
    • By dimension / BI code (e.g. department = Services, Region = UK, Project = X)
    • By GL codes (e.g. fixed asset GLs route to CFO only)
    • By supplier (e.g. specific high-risk vendors use a dedicated workflow)
    • Include / exclude logic to finely control which documents enter which workflow

Within each step you can control decision mode:

• All approvers must approve – perfect for very sensitive spend
• Any approver can approve – the first approval moves it on
• Manual selection – the processor chooses which approver within that step to send it to

The presenters stress one key design rule:

One document = one workflow.

If you have multi-line, multi-department invoices (e.g. catering, software, shared services), you design a single workflow that understands those departments/GLs/dimensions, rather than expecting one invoice to move through two different workflows.

What’s new in the day-to-day screens?

The operational AP and PO screens now surface much richer approval information without adding complexity:

• Coloured status badges (e.g. Pending, Approved, Admin Required)
• A clickable approval timeline showing:
  • Who submitted, who approved, who rejected, and when
  • Which steps were skipped (e.g. due to low value auto-approval)
  • Notes explaining actions taken
• A clear “No Workflow Found” / Admin Required status where a document doesn’t meet any workflow rules:
  • Approver Admin receives an email
  • Finance can review, adjust the workflows (e.g. add a missing department/GL/supplier) and then resubmit

If you’ve configured manual approver selection, the resubmit screen presents a pick-list to choose the appropriate approver at that step.

Key capabilities you’ll see demonstrated

• Approver substitutes with date ranges – no more reconfiguring workflows for annual leave
• Designated approver to prevent self-approval and enforce segregation of duties
• Budget holder flag feeding rich budget vs actual info into approval emails (YTD, full year, remaining budget, variances)
• Multi-step, multi-approver flows by:
  • Department / BI code
  • Supplier
  • GL code (e.g. fixed assets)
  • Value thresholds
• Auto-approval and tolerance rules to avoid unnecessary approvals for tiny variations
• Admin Required handling and workflow diagnostics via notes and the timeline
• Future roadmap call-outs, including:
  • Bulk payment approvals within the same engine
  • Auto-emailing of approved POs / invoices to suppliers
  • Reminder and escalation notifications for late approvals

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What modules does the new workflow engine cover today?
The new engine currently covers Purchase Orders, PO-linked invoices, and Non-PO invoices. Bulk payment approvals and further processes are planned as future phases.

Do I have to switch from the old approval engine immediately?
No. You can continue using the legacy engine while you design and test your new workflows. Only when you activate “enforce approval” for a process are you committing to the new engine for that process.

Can approvers be non-finance users?
Yes. Approvers are set up as system users with a Business user type, so operational managers, budget holders and department heads can approve without needing full finance access.

How does the system handle approvers who are on holiday or off sick?
Use substitutes: select a substitute approver and set the date range. During that period, all items that would have gone to the original approver are automatically rerouted, with no workflow redesign required.

What happens if an invoice doesn’t match the PO exactly?
You choose the behaviour. With exact matching enabled, invoices that differ from the PO cannot be created/approved – you must update and re-approve the PO first. With exact matching off, you can rely on re-approval tolerances (by net, gross or %) to control when re-approval is required.

Can one invoice go through two workflows?
No. Each document enters one workflow. If you have multi-department invoices, you design a single workflow whose rules cover all relevant departments/GLs/suppliers.

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