How to handle transfers that are blocked or stuck in approval?

What makes a transfer or batch transfer remain in approval perpetually?

Once a transfer is submitted for approval, if a mandatory approver is removed from the account or loses their Create / Edit permission to Transfers, no one can approve the transfer in the current step, the transfer will remain “in approval” perpetually until remediation action is taken.

How to remediate transfers that remain in approval perpetually?

The submitters or other users in the team will need to use the Timeline and discover that a transfer is stuck in approvals due to the unavailability of approvers in the current step.

They will need to report this to the admin users to update the workflow and recall the transfer. Then they can resubmit the transfer for approval.

What makes a transfer or batch transfer “blocked”?

When a user submits the transfer or an approver in the current step approves the transfer, if no remaining approval path can be found, the transfer will become blocked. This can be due to:

  1. Invalid workflow

    • E.g. For a transfer that requires approval from user A → user B → user C and the current step is pending approval from user A while user B has been removed from the Airwallex account, there will be no remaining approval path that can be found after user A approves.

    • E.g. For a transfer that requires approval from user A → user A or user B → user C and the current step is pending approval from user A while user B has been removed from the Airwallex account, and if users are not allowed to approve a transfer more than once, there will be no remaining approval path that can be found after user A approves.

  2. Other situations where the applicable layer for the transfer has no available approvers in one or more steps despite a valid workflow

    • E.g. For a transfer that is about to be submitted by user A and requires approval from user C → user B → user A, and if users are not allowed to approve what they submitted, there will be no remaining approval path that can be found after user A submits.

    • E.g. For a transfer that requires approval from user A or user B or user C → user A, and if users are not allowed to approve a transfer more than once, there will be no remaining approval path that can be found after user A approves.

How to remediate transfers that are blocked?

At the end of each day, Airwallex will send an email to the admin users notifying them about blocked transfers.

  1. They should review the blocked transfers and learn about the unavailability of approvers in the approval paths based on the Timeline. As described in the section above, the cause of blocking can be either an invalid workflow or other situations where the applicable layer for the transfer has no available approvers in one or more steps despite a valid workflow.

    • They can go to Approvals > Transfers to view and update the workflow so that at least one approval path can be found, and rerun the blocked transfers. Otherwise, they should recall the blocked transfers.

  2. When a blocked transfer is resubmitted, Airwallex will try to find at least one remaining approval path. If found, the transfer will be back in approval. Otherwise, it will remain blocked so that the admin user receives immediate feedback on whether the transfer continues to be blocked.