Customise Approval Rules to control exactly who must approve budget top-ups, payments, reimbursements, and purchase orders before they go through, using our Approval Rule builder.
Before you start
- You need to be an Admin, Owner, or hold a role granted the Approval Rules permission. Custom roles can also be given this permission.
- Some rule types only appear once the matching feature (Reimbursements, Accounts Payable, Batch invoice payments, Credit notes, or Purchase orders) is enabled for your business.
Steps
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From the sidebar, click Approval Rules.
- This is now its own sidebar item, no longer nested under Spend Management, and it only shows if you have the Approval Rules permission.
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Find the card for the rule type you want to customise, then click Edit.
- Rule types are grouped into Spending (Budget top-up, Card transaction, Reimbursement), Payments & invoices (Accounts payable, Batch invoice payment, Credit note), and Procurement (Purchase order) rules.
- Most rule types start with a default rule already in place: Budget top-up, Accounts payable, and Reimbursement rules start with a Budget Owner, "Any" rule plus a Fallback Rule; Batch invoice payment and Credit note rules start with the account Owner as sole approver; Card transaction rules start with no default rule at all for a new business.
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Review your rule editor: it shows your existing rule(s) plus a Fallback Rule section at the bottom.
- The Fallback Rule applies automatically when no specific rule matches a request. It can't have filters, but you can choose who it goes to: an individual, a role, a group, or the Budget Owner.
- Budget top-up, Accounts payable, Reimbursement, and Purchase order rules each get a default Fallback Rule. Card transaction rules can never have one (Weel blocks you from adding it), so an uncovered card transaction goes through without approval.
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Click Add filter to set a condition, such as Amount, Users, Budgets, or Roles (e.g. "Amount is greater than or equal to $500").
- Some rule types also support Category, Supplier (Accounts payable only), or Custom Fields filters. Availability can vary by plan and rollout.
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In the Approver section, choose who needs to approve: Budget owners, Users, or Roles. You can select multiple approvers.
- On the Basic plan, only Budget owners is available. Users and Roles require Premium or Enterprise.
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Choose whether Any or All selected approvers must approve.
- Any needs just one approver. All needs every selected approver before the request moves to the next step. Basic plan is limited to Any.
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Click Add approval step to add another approval step to the same rule.
- Basic plan can't add extra steps. Premium allows up to around 3 rules and 2 steps each for Budget top-up, Accounts payable, Reimbursement, and Card transaction rules; Enterprise removes that limit for the same four types. Purchase order rules aren't subject to this limit.
- Repeat steps 4-6 to customise each approval step.
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To add another rule for the same payment type with different conditions, use the add-rule option below your existing rules.
- Rules are checked top to bottom, and Weel applies only the first rule whose conditions are all met. Put your most specific rules (the ones with the most filters) near the top: a broad rule higher up can stop a more specific one below it from ever being reached. Reorder rules anytime from each rule's card menu.
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Optional: add a short description to the rule, and check Prevent self-approval if you want a requester who'd also be their own approver redirected to their delegate instead.
- Prevent self-approval is on by default for most rule types. It's off by default only for Batch invoice payment and Credit note rules, which default to the account Owner as sole approver.
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Click Update, then Confirm to finalise your changes.
- Any approval already in progress keeps following the rule that was active when it was triggered.