How to set up custom approval workflows for Transfers?

With the transfer approvals feature, you can customise transfer approval workflows that match the needs of your business. You’re able to set up approval workflows that are based on the value amount of the transfer and that require review by one or more designated approvers.

• Who can manage approval workflows for Transfers?
• Creating a transfer approval workflow
• Capabilities and use cases
• When will a transfer approval workflow become invalid?
• What happens to the transfers waiting for approval when the active workflow is updated?
• What should I expect if I already had transfer approvals enabled?

Who can manage approval workflows for Transfers?

Users with Admin permissions can create and manage transfer approval workflows. While multiple workflows can be created, only one workflow can be active at a time.

Creating a transfer approval workflow

Before you get started

You will need to make sure the users or roles you want to be able to approve transfers are added to the account and have Create/Edit transfer permissions. 

You can add someone as a user and update their permissions by navigating to ‘Account > User Management’ in the Web App.’

Access transfer approvals

To access the Transfer Approval feature in the Web App, navigate to ‘Account > Approvals > Transfers’.

Capabilities and use cases:

1. In each approval workflow, you’re able to define one or more value amount ranges (or “layers”) for which approval will be required. For example, you can define that for a transfer that is less than a certain amount, no approval is required.
2. For each amount range (or “layer”), you can define one or more approval steps. For example, you can define that for a transfer that is more than a certain value amount, approval is first required from a junior manager, then from the head of the department.
3. In each approval step, you can define one or more approvers. When there are multiple approvers, you can further define whether any or all of them must approve. For example, you can define that a transfer of any amount can be approved by any one of the finance managers.
4. You can also choose:
   • whether an approver can approve a transfer they created themselves
   • whether an approver can approve the same transfer through multiple approval steps.

When will a transfer approval workflow become invalid?

An approval workflow will be invalid when there are no viable approval pathways in any “layer”. See below for examples of when this might occur.

1. When a new or updated approval workflow conflicts with an existing workflow. In the example below, the amount range is lower than the upper limit of the previous amount range.
2. When the two additional settings are set as ‘No’, this may result in no approval pathway being available. Account admins will be able to update the workflow. In the example below, no approver can be found for the second approval step when the transfer amount is greater than 1,000 HKD.
3. When there are changes to user settings on the account that prevent an approver being available. This can be caused by a user or role specified as an approver being removed from the account, no longer having Create/Edit transfer permissions, or a role that has no user assigned. In the example below, the ‘Finance Manager’ role has now users assigned to it, so there will be no available approvers.

When a transfer approval workflow is invalid for any reason, a warning message will be displayed as shown below.

Transfers may become blocked indefinitely in these cases. To learn about how to handle transfers that are blocked or requiring approval indefinitely, please visit here.

What happens to the transfers waiting for approval when the active workflow is updated?

A transfer or a batch transfer awaiting approval respects the workflow that was applied at its time of submission. Updating, enabling, or disabling a workflow does not impact the approval workflow for transfers and batch transfers that are awaiting approval.

What should I expect if I already had transfer approvals enabled?

Accounts that already have transfer approvals enabled will be switched to the new approvals workflow automatically.

1. For users that had access to Transfers, their access permissions will be automatically updated as shown below:

2. There will be a transfer approval workflow added to your account with the following settings as default:

• For all transfer amounts, approval is needed from any of the users that previously had the “Approve” permission
• Users cannot approve transfers that they have submitted. This can be changed within the additional settings.