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Configure my organisation's claim workflows

Available for the following Payroll plan: Platinum
Available for the following user access level: Admin

An expense workflow allows an organisation to set up a process for recording and managing expenses. This typically involves gathering, categorising, auditing, and approving expenses to ensure accuracy and accountability. You can use Expense workflows to automate this process. Also, this feature follows a "when-if-then" sequence. To learn more about this, please refer to The When-If-Then sequence and scenarios tab in the Further information section of this article.

Visualise the expense workflow

Default expense workflow

Getting started

Walkthrough: Add an expense workflow
Add an expense claim workflow
  1. Click the WorkFlows menu.
  2. Click the Create New button.
    Create 1.jpg
  3. Select the Expenses template and click the Create New button.
    Create 2.jpg
  4. Click the WHEN this happens field.
    Create 3.jpg
  5. Select from the following:
    • Expense Created.
    • Expense Approved.
    • Expense Declined.
  6. Click the Save button.
  7. Click the IF these conditions are met field.
    Create 5.jpg
  8. Complete the following fields:
    • Field.
      • Request Details:
        • Amount.
        • Currency.
        • Expense Category.
        • Purchase Date.
        • Tax Amount.
      • Approval Details:
        • Approver.
        • Decliner.
      • Employee Details:
        • Contract Type.
        • Primary Cost Centre.
        • Employing Entity.
        • Employment Type.
        • Job Title.
        • Location.
        • Employee.
        • Employee Start Date.
        • Primary Manager.
        • Probation Status.
        • Secondary Manager.
        • Team
      • Other Fields.
    • Condition.
      • Is before.
      • Is equal to.
      • Does not equal.
      • Is after.
      • Is between.
    • Value - based on what you selected in Field.
  9. Click the Save button.
  10. Click the THEN do this field.
    Then1.jpg
  11. Click the Add Action button. 
  12. Choose among the following actions.

    1. Request Approval

      • Approval Flow Type:

        • All approvers must approve (sequential).

        • All approvers must approve (parallel).

        • Any approver can approve.

      • Primary Approvers.
        • Click the Add approver button for each approver you want to specify.
      • Backup Approvers:
        • Assign a backup approver for each approver.
        • Use a single backup approver for all approvers.
        • No backup approvers required.
      • Backup approvers (Optional). 

    2. Automatically Approve

      • Approver's name.

    3. Automatically Decline

      • Decline reason.

      • Decliner.

    4. Helpful Hint

      Send Email Notification includes several powerful capabilities:

      • External Recipients: Send to anyone outside Employment Hero by typing a complete, fully formatted email address (e.g., john.smith@domain.com) into the Recipients field. Once you type the full address, an option will appear to add it as an external recipient—click to add.
      • Clickable Hyperlinks: Click the link icon in the content editor to insert URLs or email addresses that recipients can click directly in the email.
      • Dynamic Subject Lines: Click the dynamic variable button (right side of Subject field) to personalise subjects with employee names, dates, or other variables.
      • Multiple Recipients: Search and select multiple roles, teams, specific employees, and external emails in one action—no need to create separate notifications.

      Send Email Notification

      • Type of recipients.

      • Subject.

      • Contents.

    5. Create Task (useful for tasks such as ensuring proper handover of work and collecting all necessary documents to maintain compliance when an employee is on leave.)

      • Name of task.

      • Description.

      • Owner.

      • Send this task to an email address.

      • Subtasks.

      • Due date.

  13. Click the Save button.

  14. Click the Save and Publish button.

    Helpful Hint

    You need to publish this workflow for it to become active. Any expense requests sent before the workflow becomes active will still need to be solved manually in the old way. Alternatively, you can ask employees to resubmit.

    Pub 1.jpg

Daily activities

Publish an expense workflow
  1. Click the WorkFlows menu.
  2. Click the Manage Workflows tab.
  3. Click the Expenses button.
  4. Click the ellipsis button for the workflow you need to publish.
  5. Click the Publish button.
    Publish expense
Unpublish an expense workflow

The option to unpublish the default workflow template is available to organisations on Platinum and Employment Unlimited plans.

This feature allows you to customise expense approvals to suit your organisation's needs. By unpublishing the default workflow, you can then create your own expense workflow that aligns with your approval hierarchies.

    1. Go to the Workflows section.
    2. Click Manage Workflows.
    3. Click the ellipsis on the General Expense Workflow.
    4. Click Unpublish.

      Important

      If the Default workflow for the Expense Workflow is unpublished, managers will be unable to approve and decline expense claim requests. Those options will be greyed out. However, admins will still be able to approve and decline expense claim requests.

      For Expense approvals, we recommend you either keep the Default workflow active or ensure another workflow is in place to allow these actions to proceed.

      Unpublish expense workflow
    5. A confirmation box will pop up. All workflow instances running or scheduled will be stopped.
    6. Click Unpublish.

Editing data

Edit an expense ‌workflow

Important

You cannot edit a published workflow. You have to unpublish it first before editing.

  1. Click the WorkFlows menu.
  2. Click the Manage Workflows tab.
  3. Click the Expenses button.
  4. Click the  button for the workflow you need to edit.
  5. Click the Edit button.
  6. Edit the workflow as needed.
    Edit 1.jpg

Deleting data

Delete an expense workflow

Important

You cannot delete a published workflow. You have to unpublish it first before deleting.

  1. Click the WorkFlows menu.
  2. Click the Manage Workflows tab.
  3. Click the Expenses button.
  4. Click the  button for the workflow you need to delete.
  5. Click the Delete button.
    Delete 1.jpg

Further information

The When-If-Then sequence and scenarios

Important

The When-If-Then sequences of workflows can only follow a particular flow.

Step 1: WHEN (a trigger occurs), then step 2: IF (particular conditions are met), then 3: THEN (a certain action can occur).

This order cannot be changed. See the below accordion entitled 'Can I change the When-If -Then sequence?' for further information and examples.

The Employee File Change Workflows feature lets you create a set of steps that Employment Hero will take regarding expense claims. Each step follows the When-If-Then sequence, which is like this:

  • When this happens -> If this condition is met -> Then do this.
    • "When" is the situation that will trigger the workflow.
    • "If" is the condition that decides what action should be taken.
    • "Then" is the action that the platform will take.

To visualise this better, please see the examples below relating to expense claims. "X" and "Y" in these scenarios refer to values you can pick and enter on Employment Hero.

  1. When an employee submits an expense claim request, If the expense claim amount is more than "X", Then the request will be sent to the executive leadership team for approval.
  2. When an employee submits an expense claim request, If the expense claim category is "X", Then the request will be automatically declined.
  3. When an employee submits an expense claim request, If the expense claim currency is "X", Then the request will be automatically approved.
  4. When an employee submits an expense claim request, If purchase start date is after "X" AND end date is before "Y", Then the request will be automatically approved.
Can I change the When-If -Then sequence?

No, the When-If-Then sequence cannot be changed.

An IF field must always come before a THEN field.

Examples:

Set up Will this work? Why?
WHEN - IF - THEN   IF field comes before the THEN field.
WHEN - IF - THEN - IF - THEN IF field comes after the first THEN field.

You cannot perform a THEN action and then have the workflow re-evaluate new IF conditions as part of the same workflow run. You will need to split these into separate workflows.

"And condition" and "Or condition" in the "IF" field

When you click the "IF" field when creating a workflow, the "Add conditions" panel will slide out. There, you will have to fill in the following: Field, Condition, and Value.

screenshot of the add conditions panel, highlighting the add condition button

Below those is the Add condition button, which lets you set up an additional condition to come with the first one. When you click this button, you will be asked to choose between:

  • And condition: This means the platform will take action only if BOTH the original and additional conditions are met.
  • Or condition: This means the platform will take action if EITHER the original or additional condition is met.

To demonstrate this, here are some examples:

 And condition:

For the image below, the platform will act only if the expense claim amount is over 5,000 and has a category of Miscellaneous. The platform will not take the specified action in the "THEN" field if both are not met, even if one of the conditions is followed.

screenshot of the add conditions panel, showing an example of the and condition

 Or condition:

For the image below, the platform will take action if the expense claim amount is over 5,000 OR has a category of Meal Allowance. There just needs to be at least one condition met for the platform to act. So, the workflow will still function if two, three, or more conditions were met.

For our example, this means the workflow will act if the expense claim amount is over 5,000, even if it falls under a different expense category. The platform will also function if the request is under the Meal Allowance category, even if the amount is less than 5,000.

screenshot of the add conditions panel, showing an example of the or condition

"And condition" and "Or condition" in the "IF" field

When you click the "IF" field when creating a workflow, the "Add conditions" panel will slide out. There, you will have to fill in the following: Field, Condition, and Value.

screenshot of the add conditions panel, highlighting the add condition button

Below those is the Add condition button, which lets you set up an additional condition to come with the first one. When you click this button, you will be asked to choose between:

  • And condition - This means the platform will take action only if BOTH the original and additional conditions are met.
  • Or condition - This means the platform will take action if EITHER the original or additional condition is met.

To demonstrate this, here are some examples:

And condition:

For the image below, the platform will act only if the expense claim amount is over 5,000 AND has a category of Miscellaneous. The platform will not take the specified action in the "THEN" field if both are not met, even if one of the conditions is followed.

screenshot of the add conditions panel, showing an example of the and condition

Or condition:

For the image below, the platform will take action if the expense claim amount is over 5,000 OR has a category of Meal Allowance. There just needs to be at least one condition met for the platform to act. So, the workflow will still function if two, three, or more conditions were met.

For our example, this means the workflow will act if the expense claim amount is over 5,000, even if it falls under a different expense category. The platform will also function if the request is under the Meal Allowance category, even if the amount is less than 5,000.

screenshot of the add conditions panel, showing an example of the or condition

Notifications
  • If request approval is selected, the platform will generate a to-do list item for the approver when the expense workflow has run.
  • When an employee submits an expense claim for approval, only their Primary Manager will receive the notification. If the Primary Manager is on expense , the notification will automatically be sent to the Secondary Manager instead.

  Don't have access to this feature? Contact our friendly sales team here if you’d like to upgrade your account to gain access to ‌expense workflows with Employment Hero today.

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