Why use a reimbursement workflow
If you require someone (typically a manager or member of the finance team) to review reimbursement requests before they can be paid, you can set up an approval workflow.
Note: If no approval workflow is set up, all reimbursement requests will go straight to Pending payment status.
Who can manage this
Reimbursement approval workflows can only be managed by Owners, Admins, or members with a Custom role and the Manage approval workflows permission.
Any team member can be selected as an approver, regardless of their role.
Set up reimbursement approvals
To create a reimbursement approval workflow:
Go to Settings > Approvals
Select the Reimbursements tab
Click Set up approvals
Choose Reimbursement approvals and click Continue
You'll then configure three things: who the rules apply to, the amount thresholds, and who needs to approve.
Choose which members' requests will trigger approvals
Select the members whose reimbursement requests should go through approval. You can pick individual members or select all. Each member can only have their reimbursement requests covered by one approval workflow at a time, but a member can be an approver in multiple workflows.
Set amount thresholds
Define the minimum reimbursement request amount that triggers an approval. For example, setting the threshold to £20 means only reimbursement requests over £20 require approval – anything at or below the threshold won't need one.
You can add multiple thresholds with different approval requirements. For instance:
Over £20 – requires approval from Kate and Liam
Over £100 – requires an additional approval from Martin or Alex
Over £1,000 – requires approval from a senior approver
Choose approvers
For each threshold, choose who needs to approve and how many approvals are required:
All – every selected approver must approve before the reimbursement request moves to the next step
Any of – only one approval from the selected group is needed to move forward
Add multiple approval steps
You can add multiple sequential approval steps, where each step must be completed before the next one begins. For example:
Step 1 (All) – Kate and Liam must both approve
Step 2 (Any of) – either Martin or Alex must approve
Click Add approval step to add additional steps to a threshold, or Add amount threshold to add a new tier. When you're happy with the setup, click Set up approvals to activate the workflow.
Manage reimbursement approval workflows
Once a workflow is set up, you can view, edit, or delete it from Settings > Approvals > Reimbursements.
Editing a workflow
Click on the workflow, then select Edit. You can change the members, thresholds, approvers, and steps. Any changes you save will apply to new reimbursement requests going forward – past requests won't be affected.
Deleting a workflow
Click on the workflow, then select Delete. You'll be asked to confirm before anything is removed. Once deleted, new reimbursement requests from those members will no longer require approval.
Multiple workflows
You can create separate workflows for different groups of members – for example, one for the Sales team and another for Office staff, each with different thresholds and approvers.
Each member can only have their reimbursement requests covered by one approval workflow at a time. If a member is already assigned to an existing workflow, they'll appear greyed out when setting up a new one.
Removing members who are in a workflow
If you try to remove a company member who's assigned as an approver in a workflow, Apron will let you know which workflows they belong to. You'll need to remove them from the workflow first before removing them from the company.
What if there’s no workflow set up?
If you haven’t set up a reimbursement workflow yet, requests will be created in Pending payment status and appear in the Inbox and Pay section right after submission.