This article walks you through creating a travel approval process where two people must both approve a trip, but in any order. Use it when you need two sign-offs (e.g. line manager and cost object approver) and it doesn't matter who approves first.

Before you start

• Make sure your account has access to two-step approvals (e.g. Pro plan and feature availability). If the option to add a second approver does not appear, contact your account manager or support.
• Decide who the two approvers should be. You can use specific people, the traveler's line manager, or the cost object approver. Both will receive the approval request at the same time.
• Decide when this rule should apply (e.g. all trips, out-of-policy only, or only when a specific cost object is selected). Your travel policies define what counts as in-policy or out-of-policy.

Setting up the approval process

1. Go to Settings > Travel management > Travel approvals.
2. Click New approval process.
3. Give the approval process a name and select who the process is for (e.g. which travelers or companies).
4. Under Is approval needed when booking?, select Yes.
5. Under Who should approve their trips?, click select approver and choose the first approver (e.g. Line manager or a specific person).
6. Click select setting and choose which types of bookings need approval (e.g. out-of-policy only, or all trips). The options depend on your travel policies.
7. To limit the rule to specific cost objects, hover over select setting, click + when, and select the cost object.

Adding the second approver

1. Next to the first approval rule, click + and also (or the option that adds a second approver with "and also" / parallel behavior).
2. Select the second approver (e.g. a specific user or cost object approver). The rule should read like: "Request approval from [first approver] and also [second approver]."
3. Under Approvals for changes to booked trips, choose whether changes to the trip after booking need approval and how, as needed. You can use the options or set up your own rules.
4. Click Create approval process.

After you save, any trip that matches the rule will send the approval request to both approvers at once. They can approve in any order. The trip is booked only after both have approved. If either declines, the request is rejected and the requester gets a notification.

Tip: Parallel approval is useful when you need both a line manager and a budget owner to sign off, but you don't want to enforce who goes first. For example, requesting approval from line manager and also cost object approver sends the request to both; whichever approves first, the other must still approve before the trip is booked.
For more two-step approval scenarios, see Two-step approval rule examples.