How to Set Up the Approval Chain

The approval chain decides who approves expenses, in what order, and at what amount each approver becomes required. It replaces the older approver list. You set it up once per property and every new expense follows it automatically.

How approvals work

• Approvers are ordered from top to bottom. An expense routes to them in that order.
• Each approver has a floor (a Required at or above amount). An approver becomes required as soon as the expense's amount reaches their floor. Every approver whose floor is reached must approve, in order, and all required approvers are unanimous. A floor of $0 means "Required for all expenses", that approver is required no matter how small the expense is.
• Floors are always compared against the pre-tax amount (the line-item subtotal, before tax), so tax never pushes an expense over an approver's floor.
• Floors increase down the chain. A larger expense simply adds the higher approvers on top of the lower ones, it doesn't skip anyone whose floor it has already reached.
• A separate board escalation setting can send expenses at or above a floor to a full board vote automatically, once they clear the approval chain above.

Steps

1. Open Property Settings, then go to the Operations tab.

2. Find the Approval Chain card and open it. The editor opens as a drawer.

3. Add your approvers in order under Required approvers. The first person at the top is the first to review.
4. For each approver, set their Required at or above amount (their floor). Enter $0 if that approver should be required on every expense, no matter the size. Each step's floor must be higher than the step above it, that's what lets URBI add approvers as the amount grows.

5. Reorder approvers by dragging them up or down. Routing always runs top to bottom in the order shown.
6. Decide whether this property needs board escalation (see below), and set its floor if so.
7. Save the chain. New expenses will follow this order and these floors from now on.

Board escalation (off by default)

Board escalation controls whether expenses that reach a certain amount are sent to a board vote automatically, on top of the regular approval chain.

• The Require board vote toggle is off by default. While it's off, the Route to board at or above floor field stays visible so any amount you've already entered isn't lost, but nothing escalates automatically no matter the expense amount.
• Turn the toggle on to activate escalation. Once on, any expense whose pre-tax amount reaches the floor you set is sent to the board automatically after it clears the regular approval chain above, the board acts as the final approver, not the first.
• The board escalation floor must be at or above your last (highest) approver's floor.
• The board decides by simple majority of active board members (abstentions excluded). A board NO rejects the expense and voids its journal entry. A board YES approves it.

This setting is different from the Require board decision option staff can turn on for an individual draft expense, which sends that one expense to the board before the approval chain runs, regardless of amount. See "How to Require a Board Decision on an Expense" for that flow.

Good to know

• If the expense's pre-tax amount doesn't reach any approver's floor, or the chain is empty, the expense is auto-approved. Give at least one approver a $0 floor if you want every expense reviewed by a person.
• Every vote and board decision is written to the expense's activity history, so there is always a clear record of who approved what.