Overriding Approvals as an Admin
Sometimes an approval workflow gets stuck - an approver may be out of office, have left the company, or simply be unavailable when a bill, payment, or purchase order needs to move forward. Rather than deleting and recreating the document or changing your approval rules, admins can now override pending approvals directly.
This article explains how to enable approval overrides, perform them, and what your team will see when one happens.
What is an approval override?
An approval override lets a business admin step in and approve or reject a bill, payment, or purchase order on behalf of the assigned approver. The admin can override a single approver's step or all pending steps at once, so the document can proceed without waiting for the assigned approvers to act.
Overrides are recorded in the document's audit trail, so there is always a clear record of who performed the override and when.
Who can use approval overrides?
Only users with an Admin role can perform approval overrides. Additionally, the feature must be enabled in your business settings (see below). Standard approvers and other team members will not see the override option.
Enabling approval overrides
Approval overrides are turned off by default. An admin must enable them for each document type individually.
Go to Settings > Rules.
Open the Restrictions and Overrides tab.
Toggle the override setting for the document types you want to allow:
Bills - Allow admins to override bill approvals
Payments - Allow admins to override payment approvals
Purchase Orders - Allow admins to override purchase order approvals
(Optional) For each document type, you can also require that the admin provides a reason when performing an override. Toggle Require override reason if your organization wants to capture why the override was necessary.
Tip: You can enable overrides for one document type without enabling them for others. For example, you might allow overrides on bills and payments but not on purchase orders.
Overriding an approval
Once the feature is enabled, admins can override approvals from the document's detail page.
Approving with an override
Open the bill, payment, or purchase order that has a pending approval.
Click the Override button.
Select the approval steps you want to override. You can approve all pending steps at once or choose specific ones.
(If required) Enter a reason for the override.
Click Approve to confirm.
The document will move forward as if the original approvers had approved it.
Rejecting with an override
Open the bill, payment, or purchase order that has a pending approval.
Click the Override button.
(If required) Enter a reason for the override.
Click Reject to confirm.
The document will be rejected, just as it would be if the assigned approver had rejected it.
What happens after an override
Audit trail: A timeline entry is added to the document showing that an approval override occurred, including who performed it. This is separate from a standard approval entry, so it is always clear whether a decision was made by the assigned approver or by an admin override.
Notifications: Email notifications are sent to the original approver who was overridden and to the creator of the document, so everyone involved is aware of what happened.
FAQs
Can I override just one step in a multi-step approval?
Yes. When overriding, you can select which specific approval steps to act on. You can override all steps at once or only the ones that are currently blocking progress.
Does the original approver still need to do anything after an override?
No. Once an approval step has been overridden, it is considered resolved. The original approver does not need to take any further action on that step.
Can I undo an override?
No. An override is a final action, just like a regular approval or rejection. If a document was overridden in error, you would need to follow your normal process for correcting approvals.
Will I know if an override happened on one of my documents?
Yes. If you are the creator of the document or the original approver, you will receive an email notification when an override occurs. You can also see the override recorded in the document's audit trail.
Do I need to enable overrides for all document types?
No. You can enable overrides for bills, payments, and purchase orders independently. Enable only the ones that make sense for your workflow.