Approvers

Overview — The Approval Chain
As an approver you review expense claims submitted by staff and either advance them or send them back for a correction. This short guide covers what you see and the decisions you make.
How you are chosen
COMS works out who approves each claim automatically:
The claim first goes to the project’s manager. (If the project has no valid manager on file, it falls back to the submitter’s own supervisor.)
If that approver isn’t senior enough, it escalates one level up their reporting line, and keeps climbing until someone senior enough signs off.
Once it clears department approval it moves on to the finance team.
How senior is “senior enough”?
COMS will validate the first approver in workflow Business Approver to see if there is an additional level required: 
•     Additional Business Approver: if your Business Approver isn't a Director, VP, CFO, or CEO, the system automatically escalates — step by step along the reporting line — until it reaches someone at that level. You don't need to do anything; this happens behind the scenes.
•     Peer cannot approve a peer: if the submitter themselves is at a same band authority level, the bar rises to one level up 
•     Larger claims: very large claims may route further up (for example, to the CEO or Board) as required by Conexus' signing authority policy with finance support.
ℹ️ Good to know: You’ll get an email whenever a claim needs your decision, and it appears under Expenses → Awaiting Approval. If it still hasn’t been actioned, COMS sends a reminder every couple of days until you decide.
⚠️ Heads up: Segregation of duties: you can never approve (or reassign the approver of) your own claim — not even as a super‑admin. Someone else in the chain always reviews it.
Your Approval Queue
Your approval queue lives under Expenses → Awaiting Approval (the Awaiting Me tab). Every claim waiting on you is listed here.
The approval queue — claims waiting on you, with quick actions.
Quick approve / quick reject
For a straightforward claim you can act right from the list. Click Approve (or Reject) on the row to open a small dialog. On approve the note is optional; on reject a reason is expected — it’s shared with the submitter so they know what to fix.
The Quick Approve dialog — add a note and confirm.
ℹ️ Good to know: Quick approve skips the line‑by‑line review and is only offered at stages that allow it (department approval). Finance stages always require the full review, so you won’t see quick actions there. To inspect receipts and amounts first, use Open full review → (covered next).
Reviewing & Deciding
To review a claim in full, open it from the queue. The detail page shows everything the submitter entered, plus a decision panel at the bottom.
Reviewing the claim
Expand each line item to check the amount, receipt and work package.
Tick the Review checkbox on a line as you satisfy yourself it is correct. This is a personal checklist to keep your place on a large claim — it doesn’t block anything, and the ticks reset each time a decision is made.
The Timeline on the right shows the full history so far.
The full review — line items with Review checkboxes and the ‘Your Decision’ panel.
Making your decision
In the Your Decision panel, add a note if you wish, then choose:
Approve — advances the claim (or, if you aren’t senior enough on your own, escalates it one step up the chain).
Reject — sends it back to the submitter. Your note is shown to them, so explain what needs to change.
Both actions ask you to confirm first: approve shows “Approve this expense and advance it to the next stage?” and reject shows “Reject this expense and send it back to the submitter?”
💡 Pro Tip: A clear rejection note (“please attach the itemised hotel receipt”) gets you a corrected claim far faster than a vague one. Note that a rejected‑and‑fixed claim comes back to the start of the approval chain as a fresh cycle, so it will reach you again.
Reassigning an approver
If a claim has reached you but really belongs with someone else (they’re away, or it’s not your area), it can be re‑assigned to a different approver from the Next approver menu on the claim. The rules:
Only available on the live stages (Department Approval or Finance Review), and needs the reassign permission.
A reason is required, and you can’t assign the submitter to their own claim.
The new approver is emailed, and the hand‑over is recorded in the timeline (“Re‑assigned — From → To” with the reason).
Delegates (approving for someone else)
An administrator can give a person a delegate for a set period (say, while they’re on leave). Delegation works alongside the original approver, not instead of them:
Either the approver or their active delegate can act, and both are emailed when a claim needs a decision.
When a delegate decides, the timeline records it as “{delegate} on behalf of {approver}”, so the audit trail always shows who really signed off.
The segregation‑of‑duties rule still applies — a delegate can’t approve a claim they themselves submitted.