Approval Policies Overview

Approval Policies and Smart Approval workflows allow you to define and enforce your spending for Teams right within Float!

With policies in place, Spenders can submit spend requests, triggering a custom approval workflow with one or more approvers. These policies can be customized based on the Team, the amount requested, and whether it's a temporary or recurring expense.

Note: Multiple approval policies are available only in the professional plan. The essentials plan allows one editable default approval policy. Reach out to support@floatcard.com to upgrade!

Default Approval Policies

If you are on the essentials plan or if a Team has not been indicated by the Spender, a "Default Approval Policy" will automatically be applied.

The levels of approval for this policy can be edited by going to "Settings" → "Approval Policies" → "Default Approval Policy"

How to create a custom Approval Policy

Approval policies live within your account settings. To create a new approval policy:

1. Navigate to "Settings" → "Approval Policies"
2. Click "Add Approval Policy" on the top right corner of the page
3. Customize your approval policy:
   • Add a policy name (e.g. Onboarding Expenses, Sales Team Expenses, etc.)
   • Assign this policy to one or multiple Teams. This will determine the approval workflow for requests submitted by spenders within the team.
   • Select the card request type, recurring or temporary.
     • Recurring expense: This should only be selected for recurring spending, such as software subscriptions, vendor payments, advertising or monthly benefits.
     • Temporary Limit: This should be selected for any one-time spend (such as a work travel trip or a team lunch) that will have a specific expiry date.

Adding Multi-layered Approvals

Approval policies can have multiple approver, they can have different levels of approval based on the amount and type of limit as well! Here’s a how-to on implementing these controls.

Multiple Approvers

1. Navigate to "Settings" → "Approval Policies" → Approval policy you would like to edit OR start crearting a new policy
2. Choose a first approver(s)
3. Click “+Add Approval Step” and add as many layers of approval as you need!

Dynamic Approvers

Dynamic Approvers is an option for admins to assign a dynamic value for an approver when creating an Approval Policy that follows the organizational hierarchy. There are three options for the Dynamic Approvers - Manager level 1, Manager level 2, Manager level 3.

• • For example, with Dynamic approvers, you can create a single Approval Policy, that applies to all the teams in the company (or select number of teams) and has the following approval sequence:
    • $0 to $300: No Approval Needed
    • $300 and above:
      • First Approver: Manager level 1 - direct manager of the employee computed dynamically based on who is making the request
      • Second Approver: Manager level 3 - the manager of the manager of the direct manager of the employee who is requesting spend computed dynamically. If this user doesn’t exist in the organizational hierarchy, then their step is skipped.
      • Third Approver: Jen McNamee - specific user. Can be any manager or admin user in Float, doesn’t need to follow the company’s organizational structure.

If you would like for an approval policy to be directed to the user's direct manager, choose one of the listed managers under "Dynamic Approver" in the drop-down.

Approval levels by expense type

Approval workflows are not the same for recurring or temporary limits. Toggle between the expense type to see what your policy looks like for each.

Approval levels by amount

You can add or reduce the approval steps and change approvers based on the amount of the request! Within the approval policy editor Click “Add Level” and choose the expense threshold for this level. You can now select a new approver and add an approval step for spend requests above this amount!

Approval levels are not the same for different expense types. You will have to create separate levels for recurring and temporary expenses.