Assigning a Policy
Once you’ve set up an approval policy, the next step is deciding where and how it should apply.
Policies can be assigned directly while you’re creating them, or later on from different areas in Productive.
This lets you handle both one-off cases, like assigning a policy to a single budget, and bulk updates across multiple budgets at once.
Setting up time and expenses approval policies is available on the Ultimate subscription plan.
You can assign a time and expenses approval policy in several ways:
1) From the Policy Itself
When creating a policy, click Assign Policy.
This takes you directly to Financials > Budgets, where you can apply the policy.
The policy page also shows how many budgets it is currently assigned to.
2) From Financials > Budgets
Assign or update policies for multiple budgets with inline editing. Just make sure you added the Approval policy field to the view.
To apply the policy to multiple budgets at once, tick the budgets, then select Assign Approval Policy in the toolbar.
3) From the Budget Sidebar
Click Edit approval policy in the budget sidebar to open the modal and assign or switch policies.
In the Approval policy dropdown, choose one of these options.
Custom: Set up approvers for this budget only. You can pick roles, people, or a person custom field, the same way as in a policy.
An existing policy: Use a policy created in Settings. Its approvers are shown read-only.
To adjust a policy’s approvers for this budget only, select the policy and click Customize. The policy’s approvers are copied into a custom setup that you can edit. The policy itself doesn’t change.
The sidebar shows the assigned policy name, or Custom policy for a custom setup, along with the avatars of time and expense approvers.
4) Default Approval Policy
Budgets automatically inherit the default approval policy when created.
How Approval Works
Approval policies define what happens once time or expenses are submitted:
When approval is required: Submissions are sent to the approvers listed in the policy. If approval is set to require all approvers, a single rejection is enough to decline the request.
When approval is not required: Submissions are automatically approved and no manual action is needed.
When a request is rejected: The person who submitted it is notified, and the entry remains unapproved until it’s corrected or resubmitted.
Managing Existing Approval Policies
Time and expenses approval policies can be modified or archived to adapt to your organization’s needs.
👉 Learn more about modifying policies, archiving them, and restoring archived policies here.
