Welcome to Vic.ai Autonomous Approval Flows, the intelligent, efficient, and autonomous way to remove human error and improve efficiency by no longer having humans translate approval spreadsheet to approval flows.
You will craft approval flows that trigger based upon vendor, amount, GL account, as well as dimension and delineate exactly which approver(s) need to be involved for every feasible scenario.
Once set, as an invoice is processed and fields are updated, the Vic.ai Approval flow will update dynamically as different flows are triggered!
If you do not yet use Vic.ai Approvals, please contact your Vic.ai representative to learn more.
Please Note: There is a maximum of 100 different Approval Flows per company that can be created. Only Admin Users are able to configure Approval Flows.
AutoPost & AutoExport
One of the key automation features to streamline your workflow is AutoPost & AutoExport. The invoice does not need to be Autopiloted, just fully approved. Any invoices that have an error in posting/exporting to the connected system, such as being in a closed period or missing a required field will need to be corrected and the process started again manually. Your team can create a View to see errors to remediate.
To enable AutoPost or AutoExport, please have an Organization Admin contact your Customer Success Manager or Vic.ai Support via in-app chat.
Accessing Autonomous Approvals
To gain access to craft Autonomous Approval Flows (AAF), contact your Vic.ai representative or in-app support. Also tell Support if users should be able to modify the pre-defined AAF flow, or if they are only determined by the flows you set!
Once access is granted:
Select the desired company
Click the Admin tab in the Navigation bar
Select Approval Flows
How Approvals Work
Autonomous Approvals are a two-step process.
Autonomous Approval will choose the first rule that would trigger for an invoice.
Autonomous Approval will then implement the approval step(s) and user(s) per approval step as defined in the workflow.
Once you've created your Autonomous Approval flows, when invoices enter Vic.ai, we will apply the first flow (top to bottom) that matches the invoice attributes. As an invoice is updated, for example changing the GL account, the Approvers will update for you!
Best Practices for Autonomous Approvals
Create your workflows from the top-down, as Vic.ai will look at the rules in that order to determine which to apply. Once a rule matches, that Approval Flow occurs.
Have a fall-back approval sequence at the bottom of your flows to occur if nothing else is triggered.
Make sure all your triggers are set! If a trigger has a blank field, that trigger won't be met and the system will SKIP that flow and continue searching.
Crafting Approvals
Use our intuitive editor to create as many workflows as you need!
Trigger and Conditional Statement Options
You can use all of the following to target your approval or user step triggers.
Total Amount
GL Account
Vendor
Vendor Tags*
PO Ranges*
Dimensions, some examples which are:
Class
Customer
Department
Job
Location
Property
etc.
Options may vary based upon the trigger, but the full range of conditional statements is:
Greater than (This GL trigger functions as an AND)
Less than (This GL trigger functions as an AND)
Less than or equal to (This GL trigger functions as an AND)
Greater than or equal to (This GL trigger functions as an AND)
Equal to (This GL trigger functions as an AND)
Ranges* (This GL trigger functions as an OR)
Multi-select* (This GL trigger functions as an OR)
To enable the Ranges and Multi-select options for GL accounts, PO Ranges, Vendor Tags please have an Organization Admin contact Vic.ai in-app support.
Approval Flow:
Define when a flow should be initiated
Title/Name: Short name for the approval flow
Description: Fuller description of the approval flow
Triggers (AND vs. OR):
Different triggers function as AND connectors. E.g. Vendor is "Amazon" and Location is "Austin". The system will look for Amazon AND Austin
Multiple of the same trigger function as OR connectors. E.g. Department is "Engineering", "HR", OR "Sales"
Except for GL Account Triggers. They can be an AND or OR, based upon using the same or different types of triggers.
Approval Steps:
Define who should approve in a flow
Approver: Add multiple approvers from the search feature
Any: Determine if a single approver needs to approve a step to advance
All: Determine if all approvers need to approve a step to advance
System*: Can determine if the system should Auto-approve the invoice (common examples being low amounts <$50 or vendors that need to be paid ASAP)
Triggers (AND vs. OR):
Different triggers function as AND connectors. E.g. Vendor is "Amazon" and Location is "Austin". The system will look for Amazon AND Austin
Multiple of the same trigger function as OR connectors. E.g. Department is "Engineering", "HR", OR "Sales"
Except for GL Account Triggers. Multiple GL Account triggers function as an AND. All triggers must be present for a flow or approval step to trigger.
To enable the System options, please have an Organization Admin contact Vic.ai in-app support.
Please Note: when removing an Approver user from Vic.ai that is included in your Approval Flow steps, you will first need to remove or replace their user at each step or flow they are included on. Removing the user prior to removing them from all approval flows will cause issues on the proper implementation of your approval flows. Please contact Support if you have any questions!
Exporting/Auditing Approval Flows
If you'd like to review or audit your existing Approval Flows, please reach out to Vic.ai support via in-app chat or emailing support@vic.ai. You'll receive a CSV export that details your Approval Flows.
Interpreting the Approval Flows
Company: The company that the Approval Flow is for
Title: The title from the Approval Flow
Description: The description from the Approval Flow
Flow Trigger: The trigger(s) used
Note, if there are multiple triggers, the approval flow will appear on multiple rows in the export
Trigger Operator: The operator used for the Flow Trigger
>: Greater than<: Less than= =: This is for an Equal condition, aka GL = 4500< =: Less to or equal than> =: Greater to or equal then
Trigger Value: The value(s) for the trigger
Approval Step #: The number of the approval step, as there can be multiple in a single flow
Note, if there are multiple approval steps, the approval flow will appear on multiple rows in the export
Approval User: The user(s) on an approval step
Note, if there are multiple approvers, they all appear in the same cell
Any/All: If an approval step requires Any or All approvers to complete the step.
Approval Trigger: The trigger(s) used
Note, if there are multiple triggers, the approval flow will appear on multiple rows in the export
Approval Trigger Operator: The operator used for the Flow Trigger
See Trigger Operator above for a full list
Approval Trigger Value: The value(s) for a trigger
Known Issues:
If there’s a Vendor Tag in the Approval Flow, it will be empty
If PO Number is used as a Flow Trigger, the export will error
For System Reject or System Approve of an invoice flow, it will appear as "System", it doesn't specify which one it is.
Generally safe to assume that this is for System Approve.