Approval workflows let you control changes and additions in Re-Leased by requiring a nominated person to review and approve them before they take effect. This is especially useful for financial controls, fraud prevention, and compliance.

This feature is available on Pro and Enterprise plans. To upgrade, Get in touch.

What Can Be Approved

Re-Leased supports four types of approval workflows. Each is enabled separately by your administrator:

Expense Invoice Approvals — expense invoices must be reviewed before they can be authorised for payment.
Work Order Approvals — maintenance work orders must be reviewed before they are actioned.
Contact Approvals — new contacts must be reviewed before they become active.
Bank Account Approvals — new or changed bank account details must be reviewed before they can be used for payment.

How Approvals Work

All four approval types follow the same basic process:

A record is submitted for approval — either automatically (e.g. when a bank account is changed) or manually (e.g. clicking Submit for Approval on a work order).
The system notifies the approver(s) — designated approvers receive an email with a link to review the item.
The approver reviews and decides — from the Approvals Hub, the approver can approve or reject the item, with an optional comment.
The record is updated — an approved record becomes active; a rejected record stays in its current state so the submitter can correct and resubmit.

Making Sure Approvals Route Through the Workflow

By default, users who have permission to approve records (invoices, work orders, contacts, or bank accounts) can do so directly - bypassing any workflow you've set up.

To ensure everything routes through the approval workflow, you must remove the direct approve permission from any user roles that should only be submitting new or changed records through the approval process.

This is controlled separately for each approval type. See the individual articles for the exact permission name and where to find it:

Invoices: Can approve invoices (Income and Expense Permissions)
Work orders: Can approve maintenance work orders (Dashboard Permissions)
Contacts: Can approve contacts (Contact Permissions)
Bank accounts: Can approve bank accounts (Contacts permissions)

Note: Removing this permission does not affect users who are assigned as approvers within a workflow step — they can still action their assigned step. Administrator users can always approve any record regardless of permissions.

The Approvals Hub

All pending approvals are managed in one place. To open the Approvals Hub, click Approvals in the main navigation menu.

The hub is divided into tabs for each approval type:

Invoice approvals
Work order approvals
Contact approvals
Bank account approvals

You will only see tabs for the approval types enabled for your organisation.

Approval Statuses

Awaiting Approval — the item has been submitted and is waiting for a decision.
Approved — the item has been approved and is now active.
Rejected — the item was rejected; the submitter can make corrections and resubmit.
Failed — a system error occurred; the workflow can be restarted.

Filtering the Hub

Use the filter bar to narrow down the list:

Approvers — filter by the person assigned to approve.
Companies — filter by organisation.
Properties and Property Groups — filter by property (invoice approvals only).
Month — filter completed or rejected items by time period.

Bulk Approvals

To approve multiple items at once:

Select the checkboxes on the rows you want to approve.
Click Approve Selected at the top of the list.
Confirm in the dialog. You can add a comment that applies to all selected items.

Restarting a Failed Workflow

If an item shows a Failed status or you need to restart a rejected item, open the item, click the three-dot menu, and select Restart.

How to Create an Approval Workflow

Navigate to Settings > Automation > Approval Workflows.
Click Create a new workflow.
Enter a name and optional description.
Select the approval type — Invoice, Work Order, Contact, or Bank Account.
Select the companies this workflow applies to.
Click Create and save.

Admin users will automatically have access to this settings screen. Assigning permissions to create and edit approval workflows can be found below

Animation showing how to create a new approval workflow, select the approval type, and assign companies

Setting Up Approval Teams

Teams allow any member to complete an approval step — preventing bottlenecks when individuals are unavailable.

In the Approval Workflows area, click Manage Teams.
Click Create a new team.
Enter a name (e.g. Finance Approvers) and select the applicable companies.
Add members by selecting specific users, or use rule-based criteria by user role or business role.
Review the user preview and exclude anyone who shouldn't be included.
Click Create and save.

Note: Teams can be edited at any time.

Animation showing how to create an approval team, apply rule-based criteria, and review the user preview

Assigning a Team to a Workflow Step

Open an existing workflow or create a new one.
In any approval step, select the team from the Approver dropdown.
Click Save Step.

When a step is assigned to a team, all members receive a notification. Any member can approve — once one approves, the step is complete.

Who Can Approve

Approval teams are configured by your administrator. A team can be made up of:

Specific users — named individuals who can approve.
Role-based — all users with a particular role (e.g. all Property Managers).

Routing can also be conditional — for example, invoices above a certain amount may require approval from a more senior team, or approvals may be routed based on contact tags, property, or expense category.

If an approver does not respond within a configured time, the approval may escalate to another team.

Email Notifications

You will receive an email notification when:

An item is submitted and requires your approval (sent to the designated approver(s)).
An item you submitted has been approved (sent to the submitter).
An item you submitted has been rejected (sent to the submitter, includes the rejection comment).
An approval is escalated to you (sent to the escalation contact).

To reduce notification volume, enable a daily digest in Personal Profile Settings > Notification Preferences > Daily To-Do List Digest.

Dashboard Tile

The Approvals tile on your dashboard shows a summary of items awaiting your attention. It lists the count for each approval type that has pending items. Click the tile to go directly to the Approvals Hub.