Some teams need a different approver on every budget, for example the account lead who knows the client best. Instead of creating a separate approval policy for each approver, you can add a person custom field to a policy.

Each budget or deal then sends its time entries and expenses to whoever is picked in that field.

📌 Example: You create a budget person field called Designated approver and add it to your Standard Time & Expense Approval policy. On Acme Budget, Manny Miller is picked as the designated approver, so Manny approves time and expenses there. On another budget, a different person is picked, and they approve. One policy covers both budgets.

To use a custom field as an approver, you need:

👉 New to approval policies? Start with Setting Up Time and Expenses Approval Policies for Budgets or Setting Up Time and Expenses Approval Policies for Deals.

Go to Settings > Custom fields, select Budgets or Deals, and click Add new custom field.

Choose Person field, give it a name that describes the approver, such as Designated approver, and click Create field.

📌 Budget policies can use budget custom fields, and deal policies can use deal custom fields. A budget field won’t show up in a deal policy, and the other way around.

👉 Learn more about setting up the field in Person Custom Field.

Open the policy in Settings > Budget or Settings > Deal, under Time & Expenses approval policies, or click Add approval policy to create a new one.

Under Time approval or Expense approval, click Add person. The list is grouped into Roles, Custom fields, and People. Pick your field under Custom fields, then click Save.

You can combine the field with other approvers, for example the budget owner. The approval type you choose, Any of the listed approvers or All listed approvers, works the same way as with other approvers.

📌 Custom fields can be approvers only. You can’t add them under Notify upon approval.

👉 To use a custom field on a single budget or deal without changing the policy, see Assigning a Time and Expenses Approval Policy to a Budget.

Open the budget or deal, go to the Custom fields tab in the sidebar, and pick a person in the field. A note under the field says Used as an approver in the current approval policy, so everyone can see that this field decides who approves.

To fill in the field on many budgets at once, add it as a column in Financials > Budgets and pick a person in each row.

📌 Anyone with the Add, edit, and delete budgets permission can change the field on a budget, and with it, who approves there. On deals, it’s the Add, edit, and delete deals permission.

Each time entry or expense goes to the person picked in the field on its budget or deal:

When the budget owner approves in place of an empty field, the approval status shows Some approvers are not assigned and names the budget owner who approves instead.

In the approval status, the approver’s name is followed by the field name, for example Manny Miller • Designated approver. This way, everyone can see why that person is approving.

Pending approvals update on their own. Approved and rejected time entries and expenses stay as they are.

📌 Example: Manny Miller is the designated approver on Acme Budget and has 3 time entries waiting for approval. You change the field to Alex Taylor. All 3 entries now wait for Alex, and any entries Manny already approved stay approved.

You can’t archive or delete a custom field while an approval policy uses it as an approver. If you try, you’ll see Custom field is used in an approval policy. Remove the field from those policies first, then archive or delete it.

When you offboard someone who’s picked in a person field on budgets or deals, the offboarding form shows a row for that field, for example Designated approver on budgets. Choose who takes their place in the field.

If the field is used as an approver, the person you choose also takes over their pending and future approval requests from that field.

👉 Learn more in Offboarding Users.