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Approval Policies

Overview

Approval policies on Ramp govern the steps required to approve card issuance, card edits, reimbursements, and bill payments. You can define who needs to approve what and when, as well as keep certain people informed via notifications. Any user can add approvers to the approval chain while an approval in-flight; only Admins may remove approvers.

Ramp makes it easy to customize approval workflows so admins can define the right set of people to approve expenses based on the amount. Approval policies cover:  

  • New card requests
  • Card edits
  • Reimbursements
  • Bill payments

The article below will cover:

  1. How to set approval policies
  2. Editing in-flight approvals for cards, reimbursements, and bills
  3. Creating custom groups and department/location owners

Setting Approval Policies

Overview

You can add approval policies for new cards for users, managers, and reimbursements by heading to Settings —> Spend Controls. Approval workflows are separated by the specific type of spend that is being put up for approval (card requests, reimbursements, bill pay, and post-transaction)

Within any approval drawer, you can define: 

  1. The amount ($) range that requires this approval (the "layer")
  2. Who needs to approve & the sequence
  3. Who needs to be notified

Note that you can set up multiple layers of approvals to customize even further. Bookkeepers may now be added to the approval chain for Cards, Reimbursements, and Bill Pay.

If the approval chain has the same user within multiple approval steps, we'll smartly de-duplicate so that the user has to only approve the request only once.

It is also important to note that the dollar amount that is entered is based on annual spend. An example is if the threshold you set is $1,200 and the card you are issuing has a monthly limit of $100 then it will fail within that approval layer.

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Employee Cards

Spend Controls > Card Request Approvals

When employees request cards or a manager creates a card for them on the Ramp dashboard, you can choose if multiple employees need to approve this card creation by clicking the “pen and paper” icon and what individual card limit you’d want to be notified for:

Admins can also set additional approval layers within an approval layer by clicking on the "pen and paper" icon. This is where an admin can establish who on your team is required to approve the request and who also gets notified of a request. If a manager or admin is required then they need to take action and approve the spend request. If an admin or manager is set as notify, then they are simply kept in the loop with a notification, but no further action is required.

 

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Manager Cards

Spend Controls > Card Request Approvals

Previously, managers were able to create cards without approval. If you’d like, you can now set Ramp up to have an admin or business owner approve a new card created by managers by clicking the “pen and paper” icon, or leave as auto-approved for manager cards:

Reimbursements

Spend Controls > Reimbursement Approvals

Finally, you can add approval flows for employee-submitted reimbursements. By default, managers or admins will be able to approve out-of-pocket expenses to be reimbursed. You can click the “pen and paper” icon to require multiple individuals to approve a reimbursement and denote an amount you would want multiple approvals for:

By default, for all of these, managers will be able to assign and approve card requests for employees and be able to approve reimbursement requests from employees. Reimbursements from managers and admins will require approval from another admin by default. 

 

In-Flight Advanced Approvals

For in-flight approvals, any user may add additional layers for new cards, reimbursements, or bills. Only Admins may remove approvers. This feature is especially helpful if additional review is needed on an approval or if a team member is currently unable to approve a transaction. Updates to the approval flow will be reflected in the event history tab.

Once the last approval has been made, no additional approvers may be added.

Note: This does not apply to post-transaction reviews.

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Custom Groups and Location/Department Owners

Admins may create custom approval groups & create approval owners for departments and locations. Assign groups and owners to approval policies rather than one-by-one to ensure your approvals have coverage even if a team member is absent.

Groups are created with OR functions, requiring only one member of the group to approve for a specific approval layer. New groups can add existing groups or individuals. Cardholders may not be added to approval groups.

How to create a Custom Group

  1. Navigate to "Company" > "Custom Groups"mceclip0.png
  2. Click "Create Custom Group", enter in the relevant info in the drawer, and click "Create Group". Your new group is all set!mceclip1.png
  3. To add your new group to an approval chain, navigate to Settings > Spend Controls, and click edit or add a new approval layer. Your new approver group will be an option in the "Select approvers" dropdown.mceclip2.png

How to add Location or Department Owners

  1. Navigate to "Company" > "Department" or "Locations"
  2. Select the dropdown and click the checkbox next to each person you'd like to add as the department or location approvermceclip3.png