How approvals work
Some actions on Schoolwati go through an approval workflow — one person initiates, another reviews. This catches mistakes and keeps a clean audit trail.
What needs approval today
Payment reversals
You can't directly delete a payment. To reverse one (parent paid twice, wrong amount, refund), an Accountant raises a reversal request and an Institution Admin or Branch Admin approves. The full flow is in Payment reversals.
Expenses
Expenses can require approval based on the rules your school has configured. By default, all expenses are auto-approved on save. See Recording expenses.
Payroll runs
A monthly payroll run is reviewed by an admin before payslips publish. The Accountant runs it; the Institution Admin reviews and approves. See Running payroll.
Student admissions
A pending admission moves to active only after an admin approves. See Managing the student lifecycle.
Documents and photos
Uploaded documents and photos go through approval queues. See Reviewing student documents and Photo approvals.
Staff leave requests
A staff member's leave request is approved by their reporting manager or HR. See Staff leave requests.
Why approvals matter
Two people involved means:
- Mistakes get caught — a typo in a refund amount is more likely to be noticed by a second pair of eyes.
- Fraud is harder — a single user can't move money without someone else signing off.
- The audit trail is complete — every approval logs who did what and when.
What's coming
A unified approval rules engine is on our roadmap. The idea: configure rules like "expenses below ₹5,000 auto-approve, ₹5K–50K need branch admin, above 50K need institution admin". Today these thresholds are built into each workflow individually rather than being configurable in one place.
When that ships, you'll be able to set thresholds + routes from a single Settings → Approvals page.