Overview
Within Project Settings, you can configure a financial approval workflow for Project Budgets, Budget Changes, Contracts, Change Orders & Amendments, and Invoices. This allows you to establish a chain of approval that items will go through before they can be marked as final (approved/executed).
Prerequisites
Individuals who will be on the workflow must have an INGENIOUS account and be added to the project through Project Directory or Project Summary.
If using Billable Roles to identify an individual in the workflow, the Employee must have a Billable Role added to their account.
(Optional) Set up templates for financial approval workflows to save time.
Process
Reviewing Financial Approval Workflow Templates (if applicable)
Your workspace Administrators may have configured financial approval workflow templates for you to utilize. To review these templates, go to Lists & Templates > Financial Approval Workflows.
Financial Approval Workflow templates may use a “Billable Role.” For example, the workflow may say that an item must go to a Project Manager and then to a Director. If Billable Roles are utilized in a financial approval workflow, the Employees should have their Billable Roles configured by a workspace Administrator:
Applying a Financial Approval Workflow to Your Project
Open your project and use the Project Navigation Menu to open Project Settings.
From the list of project settings on the left, select Financial Approval Workflows.
Use the tabs to set up a financial approval workflow for the different financial items.
If you are in an Owner's Rep workspace type, you can also set the Client Approval Settings. Specify the client's involvement for each item: Send to Client if the client is working with you on-system and will log into INGENIOUS to approve items, Record Approval if you will record the client's approval on your side, or Disabled if client approval is not required.
When creating an approval workflow, open the applicable tab and click Create Approval Workflow. Choose if you are creating a workflow from scratch (Empty Workflow) or using an existing template.
Creating an Empty Workflow
Use this option to create a project-specific workflow from scratch.
Name the workflow and click Create.
Click Add Approver. Use the Employee/Role dropdown to add each individual to the workflow. The dropdown will show the employees who are on the Project Directory. You can also reorder or remove the employees from the workflow.
Specify if this item should go to the individuals on the workflow one at a time, or all at once (Approval Sequence On or Off).
(Optional) Turn the Cost Codes toggle On to create different workflows for different cost codes on your budget. For example, the consultant invoices could go through a different workflow than the contractor invoices.
(Optional) Turn Approval Limit On to specify approval limits:
Less Than: The employee can only approve items up to this amount. Employee will be bypassed in the workflow if the item exceeds their limit.
Greater Than: The employee will only have to approve items if they exceed this amount.
(Optional) If your created workflow applies to other items, choose “Apply to Other Approvals.”
Click Save.
Using an Existing Workflow Template
Click Choose Template.
Scroll or search to find the template you are looking for. Select the template and click Select.
Name the workflow and click Create.
In the example below, the workflow template utilized includes a Project Manager, a Project Executive, and a Director. On this project, we already have a Project Manager and a Director, but we need to assign a Project Executive to use this workflow.
After applying a template, you can make changes if needed.
Click Save.