Setting up payment approval workflows

• 11/11/2025
• 8 minutes to read

Continia Banking lets you set up secure approval workflows for vendor, employee, and customer payments. You can create one approval workflow per payment journal and choose whether lines are approved individually or as a batch. Payment Approval only works on Continia Banking-enabled payment journals and requires the Security module to be activated.

To set up an approval workflow for a payment journal

Use the Assisted Setup guide to create a new approval workflow:

1. Search () for and select Assisted Setup.

2. Scroll to the Continia Banking section and select Set up security.

3. If Use Bank Account Verification is enabled in Banking Export Setup, decide how to implement verification:

   • Use Bank Account Verification - changes to bank account information must be verified before they are approved.
   • Enable Verifiers to Approve Own Changes - allows users with the CB BANK ACC. VERIF. permission to approve their own changes.
   • Enable Approval Admins to Approve Own Changes - allows users with the CB365 ADMIN permission to approve their own changes.
   • Block Payment Export - payments cannot be exported until bank account information is verified.

4. On the same page, turn on Workflows.

5. Optionally, verify existing bank accounts and click Next.

6. Select the payment journal batch for the workflow. Check the Approval Workflow column to see if a workflow has already been created for the payment journal. Creating a new workflow on a journal with an existing workflow will overwrite it.

7. Add approvers to the workflow. Only select users set up in the User Setup are selectable. Optional approver settings:

   Setting	Description
   Approval Amount Limit (LCY)	Maximum amount the user can approve. Approvers are ordered from lowest to highest limit. Default: 1.00
   Email	Enter or update the user's email address.
   Email Notification	Choose when the user receives approval emails: Never, Instantly, or Daily.

8. In the Send Approval Requests To, select who receives the approval request:
   

   Setting	Description
   All	Sends requests to all approvers, ignoring the amount limit. Use this setting if you want the payment to be approved by all the approvers on the list.
   First qualified	Sends requests to the first approver with a limit that meets or exceeds the batch or line value. For example, if the approvers are three accountants with different approval amount limits set: $1000, $10,000, and $100,000. If the payment amount is $900, the approval request only goes to the accountant who can approve amounts up to $1000. If the payment amount is $15,000, the approval request goes to the third accountant on the list, who can approve amounts up to $100,000.
   All to first qualified	Sends requests to all approvers up to the first qualified approver. For example, there are three accountants and one manager in the finance department. The approval amounts assigned to each accountant determine how many approvers are needed. The accountants can approve $10,000, $150,000, and $10,000,000 respectively. If the amount is $10,000, only one accountant has to approve the payment, but if the payment amount is higher than $10,000 and below $150,000, a second approver is required. If the payment amount exceeds $150,000, three accountants must approve the payment.
   Initial and first qualified	Sends requests to the lowest-limit approver and the first qualified approver. For example, if there are three accountants and the head of administration in the finance department. Each accountant is responsible for a different approval amount, and the head of administration must approve every payment. Suppose you now specify different amounts for each accountant (e.g., $1000, $10,000, $100,000) and $1 for the head of administration. In that case, the approval request for every payment goes to the head of administration and the first eligible accountant.
   All up to limit	Sends requests simultaneously to all approvers until the Required No. of Approvers is met. Once the limit is reached, pending requests are automatically approved. For instance, if two accountants and the CEO are assigned, but the Required No. of Approvers is set to 2, the CEO's approval becomes redundant once both accountants approve. Approval occurs promptly upon meeting the specified approval count. Upon reaching the approval limit, all pending requests are automatically approved and labeled as Approval completed by %1, Required number of approvals reached, signifying fulfillment of the required approvals.

   
   

9. If using All up to limit, set the Required No. of Approvers.

10. Specify these workflow settings:

    Setting	Description
    Approval Type	Select Journal Batch Approval if you want users to request approval of all the lines in the journal batch combined. All journal lines must be valid before sending the approval request for batch approval to work. To post the payment of a batch, all lines must have status paid or sent. Select Journal Line Approval if you want users to request approval for each individual journal line.
    Field Restriction	Select whether you want to lock fields to make sure data is not changed while the payment is in the approval process. The options are: All Fields or Sensitive Fields only (e.g.: Name, Address, IBAN, SWIFT, Currency Code, Branch No., and Account No). If switched on, a user who tries to change a field that is part of a payment in the approval process receives an error message.
    Max. Amount (LCY) Allowed Without Approval	Specify the maximum amount of a journal batch or line (depending on the specified approval type), up to which the payments can be exported to the bank without approval.

    
    
    1. Click Finish to save your changes and close the assisted setup guide.

To set up mandatory payment approval on a bank account

You can ensure that payments from a specific bank account always require approval. Payments from this account cannot be made in journals without Payment Approval.

1. Search () for and select Bank Accounts.
2. Select the relevant bank account.
3. On the General FastTab, enable the Mandatory Payment Approval setting.