Understand approval routing
Approval routing turns company policies and saved document data into the review and approval steps shown on each invoice.
Approval building blocks
| Part | What it does |
|---|---|
| Policy | Holds the conditions, matching mode, outcome, and route steps for one routing rule. |
| Condition | Compares saved document or email data with the values configured in the policy. Available fields come from the company's schema. |
| Step | Defines one stage in the route. A later step waits for the earlier step to finish. |
| Approver group | Assigns employees, employee groups, or a supported approver resolved from document data. |
| Completion rule | Decides how many people or groups must act before a step finishes. |
| Order | Controls the top-to-bottom evaluation sequence on each policy tab. |
Policy tabs
The Approval policies page has four tabs. The first two use the document label configured by your company. For example, a company whose document label is Invoice sees Invoice approval and Invoice review.
| Tab | What it routes |
|---|---|
| Your document label followed by approval | Approval work after review is complete. |
| Your document label followed by review | Validation review work before approval. |
| Email review | Review of uncertain attachment classification or split decisions. |
| Fallback approver | Documents that match no approval policy, plus matched auto-approve routes that cannot be used. |
Users with company:approvals:manage can change the Fallback approver. If no policy matches and no fallback approver is configured, Clerked blocks submission and asks an administrator to set one.
How Clerked resolves matching policies
Clerked evaluates policies in the order shown on the active tab. Each policy controls what happens when it matches:
- Use all matching policies collects that policy's route and continues checking later policies, so several matching rules can contribute to the final route.
- Use first matching policy uses that policy and stops checking later policies.
This means order always helps you read the matrix, but it changes the result most directly when a matching policy stops evaluation. A broad stop-first policy above a narrower policy can prevent the narrower policy from being reached.
There is no self-service preview for an unsaved policy draft. Save the policy, then use an invoice with representative saved data to check the calculated route. The compact approval route control under the invoice title shows the current result and the policies that contributed to its steps.
How an invoice moves through the route
- Clerked completes document processing and review.
- Clerked evaluates the saved invoice data against active approval policies.
- Matching policies build the approval route, or the fallback approver receives the invoice when no policy matches.
- The first approval step receives the invoice.
- Each completed step advances the invoice to the next step.
- After the final step, the invoice becomes Approved and can continue to ERP export.
If an approver rejects the invoice, the route shows Approval returned and the invoice goes back for correction. After the correction is submitted, Clerked evaluates routing again.
Change routing without changing every policy
Use an invoice routing override for one invoice. Use a delegation when another employee needs to act for an approver during a date range. When a material invoice edit happens during approval, Clerked reroutes the invoice back to review automatically.