Deep Dive: How do Category and Tag Approvers work?

Sasha Kluger
Sasha Kluger Expensify Success Coach - Admin Posts: 126 Expensify Team
edited April 2020 in Deep Dive Docs

Some companies require additional approval based on individual expenses, not just based on the employee submitting the expense report. For these situations, you can set up Category Approvers and Tag Approvers in your Expensify policy.

What is a category approver?

A category approver is a user who is added to the approval workflow for any reports in your Expensify policy that contain expenses with a specific category.

For example: Your HR director Jim may need to approve any relocation expenses submitted by employees. If you set Jim up as the category approver for your Relocation category, then any reports containing Relocation expenses will first be routed to Jim for approval before continuing through the rest of the approval workflow.

How do I add a category approver in my policy?

To add a category approver in your policy:

  1. Navigate to Settings > Policies > Group > [Policy Name] > Categories
  2. Click "Edit Settings" next to the category that requires the additional approver
  3. Select an approver and Save

Here's where to go on the Categories page:

And here's what you'll see in the "Edit Rules" dialog:

What is a tag approver?

A tag approver is a user who is added to the approval workflow for any reports in your Expensify policy that contain expenses with a specific tag.

For example: Let's say that employees must any tag project-based expenses with the corresponding project tag. Pam, the project manager for one of your projects, must review any expenses incurred for that project. If you set Pam up as the project approver for that project, then any reports containing expenses with that project tag will first be routed to Pam for approval before continuing through the rest of the approval workflow.

Please note: Tag approvers are only supported for a single level of tags, not for multi-level tags.

Second note: The order in which the report is sent to tag approvers relies on the date of the expense.

For example:Expense1: $10 on March 19th, 2020 - tag approver is employeeB

Expense2: $10 on February 20, 2020 - tag approver is employeeA

Expense3: $5 on November 11, 2019 - tag approver is employeeC

Submits to is: Manager1

In this example, the report would go: Submitter > EmployeeB > EmployeeA > EmployeeC > Manager1.

How do I add a tag approver in my policy?

To add a tag approver in your policy:

  1. Navigate to Settings > Policies > Group > [Policy Name] > Tags
  2. Click in the "Approver" column next to the tag that requires an additional approver

What will the approval workflow be?

Category and Tag approvers are inserted at the beginning of the approval workflow already set on the People page. This means the workflow will look something like:

Submitter > Category Approver(s) > Tag Approver(s) > Submits To > Previous approver's Approves To.

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