Owners And Properties
Setting Up an Owner Payment Approval Workflow
An approval workflow adds a required review step before any owner disbursement is paid out. When enabled, submitted payment requests are routed to a designated approver who must approve them before funds can leave your account. This supports your internal controls and creates a clear audit trail for every owner payment.
Why Use an Approval Workflow
Without an approval workflow, any user with permission to create owner payment requests can also move them directly to payment. Enabling approvals ensures that:
- A second set of eyes reviews every disbursement before it is paid
- Unauthorized or erroneous payments are caught before funds leave your account
- Your team maintains a documented record of who approved each payment and when
Configuring Approval Settings
Approval workflow settings are managed by an account admin. To configure approval requirements for owner payment requests:
- Navigate to Settings in the main navigation.
- Select Owner Payments (or Bill Pay settings, depending on your account configuration).
- Locate the Approval Workflow section.
- Enable the approval requirement and configure your approval tiers, including:
- Approvers — the users assigned to review and approve requests
- Approval thresholds — optional dollar-amount thresholds that trigger approval requirements (for example, requiring approval only for payments above a certain amount)
Approval tiers allow you to require different approvers or additional sign-off depending on the payment amount. For example, you might require one approver for payments under $5,000 and two approvers for larger disbursements.
Who Can Approve
Only users with the appropriate admin or approver role on your Topkey account can be assigned as approvers. When configuring your approval workflow, only eligible users will appear as options in the approver selection. If you need to grant a team member approval permissions, update their role in Settings > Team Members before adding them to a workflow.
The Approval Lifecycle
1. Request Submitted
When a team member submits an owner payment request, it enters the Needs Approval state and appears in the designated approver's queue. The requester cannot proceed to payment until the request clears the approval step.
2. Approver Reviews the Request
The approver opens the request from the Owner Payments list or their approvals queue. The detail panel displays all relevant information:
- Owner — the owner being paid
- Amount — the disbursement amount
- Payment For — the purpose or description of the payment
- Memo — any additional notes from the requester
- Property — the associated property, if applicable
- GL Code — the general ledger classification
The approver can also view the full Activity history and the Comments thread directly from the detail panel tabs.
3. Approver Takes Action
From the detail panel, the approver can:
- Approve the request — the request moves to the payable state and becomes ready to disburse
- Deny the request — the request is returned to the requester with a notification
- Leave a comment — the approver can ask questions or request more information without approving or denying
Use the Comments tab to communicate with the requester directly on the payment request. All comments are logged in the activity history and visible to anyone with access to the request.
4. Approved — Ready to Pay
Once approved, the request moves to the Ready to Pay state. It can now be selected for disbursement. See Paying an Owner for the full payment steps after a request is approved.
When a Request Is Denied
If an approver denies a request:
- The requester receives a notification that the request was not approved
- The request returns to a state where it can be edited
- The requester can update the request details and resubmit for approval
Denied requests must be corrected and resubmitted — they do not automatically re-enter the approval queue. The requester should review the approver's comments before making changes.
Bypassing the Approval Step
In some cases, a payment request may not require a separate approval step:
- If your account's approval workflow is configured with a threshold, requests below that dollar amount move directly to the payable state without requiring approver action.
- Users with a sufficient admin role may be able to approve their own requests if your workflow permits self-approval — check your approval tier configuration to confirm whether this is allowed for your account.
If a request does not have an active approval request attached to it, the Approval tab will not appear in the request detail panel. This indicates the request was not subject to an approval requirement.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I require approval for only large payments, not every request? Yes. When configuring your approval workflow in settings, you can set a dollar-amount threshold so that only requests above a certain amount are routed for approval. Requests below the threshold move directly to the payable state.
What happens if the assigned approver is unavailable? An account admin can reassign or update approvers in the approval workflow settings. If a request is stuck awaiting review, contact your account admin to adjust the approver assignment or approval tier configuration.
Can the same person who created a request also approve it? This depends on how your approval tiers are configured. If your workflow requires a separate approver, the system will enforce that restriction. Review your approval settings or contact Contact Support if you need to adjust self-approval rules for your account.