Pre-Approvals are great for employees with infrequent or occasional spend on purchases. This can include expenses like flights, hotels, or software. Pre-Approvals are treated as stand-alone budgets, and do not coincide with a traditional budget (total, daily, weekly, or monthly). Rather pre-approvals are additional budgets that can be added to cards when a one-off situation arises.

Create a pre-approval

Any member of an account can create a purchase request by clicking the Pre-Approvals section under the Personal tab and + Request.

Filter the Pre-Approvals on the right-hand side by Pending, Approved, or Denied.

Complete the pre-approval request by filling in the details for the amount, description, and date. Add any merchant restrictions, custom field or location information, and any expense categories related to your request.

Details

• Which card are you using?
  • You can select a new virtual card or one that is currently assigned to you.
• What would you like to purchase?
  • Enter in a description of the purchase.
• How much do you need? 
  • Enter in the amount of the purchase. You can select a set amount or a recurring amount.
• Any additional details?
  • Write additional comments.
• Do you have an invoice or PO? 
  • Attach invoices, purchase orders, or any other supporting documents to the request.
• When should funds be available? 
  • Set a starting and an end date.
• Where will this card be used?
  • Add merchant restrictions to limit where the funds can be used.

Once submitted, the request can be reviewed or approved by any admin, accountant, or reviewer with spending privileges within your department.

Creating pre-approval as an Admin

If you want to create a purchase request for a specific card as an Admin, because the card might not be assigned to you, you will not be able to see the card as an option in the Purchase Request page.

To create a purchase for a specific card:
1) Go to the Cards page
2) Click on the card you want to create a purchase request for
3) Under the card, click on "More" and "Request Funds"

Pre-Approvals list

All Pre-Approvals can be founds on the list on the Pre-Approvals page.

As an Admin, you can Approve or Deny pre-approvals and view a list of the current pre-approvals on the cards.

View Pre-Approvals on Cards

To view a pre-approval on a card, go to the Cards page and click on the card.

On the card's page, any allowance that was pre-approved will have a checkbox on the allowance. It will also be included in the Spending Restrictions > Approved Budgets section on the page.

Automatically Approve Pre-Approvals

Save time and reduce the potential for unauthorized spending by creating rules to automatically approve purchase requests. Admins, accountants and reviewers can click Expense Policy to view the Pre-Approvals section.

Admins can click Add Rule to construct certain conditions for an automatic approval of a pre-approval.

Choose from the following options when creating a rule:

• under the amount: dollar amount of request, i.e. over $100
• with expenses for: add any merchant restrictions for the request
• with a category of: select one category from your list (i.e. GL codes)
• with a custom field of: only automatically approve requests associated with a specific custom field
• with a location of: only automatically approve requests associated with a certain location

Only one of these options is required to create a pre-approval rule. Make as many pre-approval rules as needed for your business.

Once a pre-approval is approved, the funds are available immediately. Balances reset to the standard amount at the end of the week/month.