Approval Automation
Automate your approval process for all employees without complicated NetSuite Workflows
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Automate your approval process for all employees without complicated NetSuite Workflows
Last updated
Was this helpful?
This feature is included within SquareWorks' Automate AP Automation Suite.
In order to submit a record for approval, you must first navigate to the record you’re trying to submit. When viewing the record, there will be a Submit for Approval button added to the top of the page:
Press Submit for Approval to submit the record for approval.
Any record which has Approval Workflow Automation enabled will automatically show a tab called Approval History when viewing the record:
The Approval History tab shows a full history of all approval requests for the record you’re currently viewing. Even if an approval process is rejected and started again, history will be maintained. The following details are shown:
Approvers: Shows the employee(s), role or group assigned to the request for approval. If a role or group is shown, you can click on the link to view the assigned employees. Next to the approvers, it will say All or Any Required. If Any are required, any of the specified employees (or employees assigned to the group/role) can approve the request. If All are required, all of the specified employees must approve for the approval request to be completed.
Approval Type: Shows the type of approval request. This will be either Employee, Role, Group or Employee Hierarchy depending on how your approval process has been configured.
Approval Step: Shows the step associated to the current approval request. If your approval process has multiple steps (based on your implementation), you will see additional rows in the Approval History tab progress through multiple steps to complete the approval process.
Date Requested: The date/time the approval request was first requested.
Status: The current status of the approval request. If the approval request is completed (meaning is has been approved, rejected or canceled) the status field will show who completed the approval request.
Comments: Shows any comments that were left by the approver when approving or rejecting. These comments can be entered via the UI or email.
Approval Request Email
When approval has been requested, the approver(s) will be sent email to approve the record. Within the email, you will often see details about the record, links to view the record in NetSuite and buttons to either approve or reject the record directly via email. The format of this email depends on your implementation.
Approve or Reject via Email
If you would like to approve or reject via email without logging into NetSuite (or if you don’t have access to NetSuite) you can press the Approve or Reject buttons in the email. This works on both desktop and mobile devices.
After pressing one of the buttons, a new email message will appear
Within the new email message you can optionally enter comments in the body of the email message. To complete the approval or rejection, press the Send button.
The email address used to send the response will be matched against the employee record(s) in NetSuite to check for a valid email address.
Approve or Reject via NetSuite
If you would prefer to log into NetSuite to approve or reject, you can click the link in the email to be directed to NetSuite.
Also, if you have dashboard reminders setup in NetSuite (depending on your implementation) you can view your dashboard for records pending your approval.
When viewing a record in NetSuite pending your approval, you will see Approve and Rejection buttons on the top of the page:
Click one of the buttons to either Approve or Reject. If you would like to leave comments, you can optionally enter them after pressing Approve or Reject:
Any NetSuite user who has permission to view a record pending approval will have the ability to cancel an approval process (allowing it to be submitted again). When viewing a record, click the Cancel Approval button and optionally enter comments:
If your employee is assigned permissions to act as a super approver, you will see a button called Super Approve when viewing a record pending approval.
After pressing Super Approve, you will be given the option to choose what you would like to approve (Record vs Approval Request) and leave an optional comment:
Approving the Record will skip all approval steps and fully approve the record. Approving the Approval Request will only approve the active approval request and will not skip all approval steps.
As a super approver, you also have permission to change the current approver in an active approval process. The new approver selected will approve on behalf of the original approver. Navigate to the record pending approval and press the Approval History tab. On the Approval History tab, you will find a Change link next to the current approval request:
Click on the Change link to open the Change Approver screen:
On the Change Approver screen, there are a number of settings you can choose:
Approval Type: Using this field, you can change the type of approval requested. For example, if a specific employee was requested to approve, you could change this to Role to enable anyone with that role to approve.
Reason for Change: Enter a reason why you’re changing the approver. This information will be shown on the Approval History tab.
Employees/Role/Group: Select the employee(s), role or group to act as the new approver.
All Employees Must Approve: When enabled, all of the selected employees (or all of the employees assigned to a role or group) must approve before the current approval request is completed and moves on to the next step (if your approval process has multiple steps)
Don’t Send Approval Emails: Enable this to stop approval request emails from being sent to the new approver(s).
Press Save to change the approver. The window will close and the record’s page will automatically refresh.
Records can be bulk approved using the included AWA Bulk Approval screen. This screen is hidden by default for all roles, but can be enabled by an Administrator. Please note that the name of the bulk approval screen my vary based on configuration and will be provided by your Administrator.
