Feature Availability

Vtiger Editions: One Pilot | One Growth | One Professional | One Enterprise | One AI

Introduction

Approvals for Field Sales in Vtiger CRM help organizations control and monitor sales representatives' activities in the field. Whether it is offering special discounts, requesting travel reimbursements, updating deal values, or submitting visit expenses, Approvals ensure accountability and compliance before records are finalized.

This is especially useful for distributed sales teams using the Vtiger Field Sales App, where real-time approvals prevent policy violations while keeping operations agile.

Key Features

The key features of Approvals for Field Sales are:

• Condition-based approval triggers
• Role-based or user-based approver assignment
• Automatic record locking during approval
• Mobile app support for submitting approval requests
• Multi-level approval configuration
• Complete approval history and audit trail

Benefits

The key benefits of using Approvals for Field Sales are:

• Enforcing company policies on discounts and pricing.
• Controlling travel and expense reimbursements.
• Preventing unauthorized deal modifications.
• Maintaining transparency across field operations.
• Creating an audit trail for all field-related financial decisions.

In this article, you will learn about:

• Approvals for Field Sales
• Different scenarios of the approval process in the Field Sales

Key Terminology

Approval Process for Field Sales

The following steps show how Approvals work for the Field Sales:

1. Configure an approval rule for a Field Sales-related module, such as the Expenses module or Beat Plans module.
2. Define the trigger conditions (for example, Expense amount > ₹5,000 or Discount > 12%).
3. Assign an approver, such as a Manager or a designated supervisor.
4. A field sales representative onsite creates an expense record and submits it for approval. When the trigger conditions are met, the system automatically sends the record for approval.
5. The system locks the record until the approver takes action.
6. The approver reviews the request and either approves or rejects it.
7. Once the approver approves the request, the record proceeds to the next stage.

Approval Scenarios in Field Sales

Beat Approval

Example Scenario: Your sales manager assigns a new Beat, Oxford Street Retail Zone, to several outlets in London. Assume that the outlets belong to an existing territory managed by another sales agent, the system sends the Beat assignment for approval to the Regional Sales Manager.

• Condition: New Beat assigned to outlets in an existing territory
• Approver: Regional Sales Manager
• Outcome:
  • If approved, the Beat is assigned to the outlets and becomes available for Beat Plan creation
  • If rejected, the manager must revise the Beat assignment

This ensures outlets and territories are assigned correctly before they are used for field sales planning.

Beat Plan Approval

Example Scenario: Your sales manager creates a Beat Plan for you to visit 10 retail outlets over the next week. Vtiger generates Routes and Events for the selected outlets. However, organizations may require approval before these records are generated.

• Condition: A new Beat Plan is created, and the outlets are selected
• Approver: Area Sales Manager
• Outcome:
  • If approved, the system automatically creates Routes and Events for the selected outlets.
  • If rejected, the Beat Plan can be modified and resubmitted.

This ensures managers review and approve agents’ visit schedules before routes and events are generated.

Deal Discount Approval

Example Scenario: As a field sales rep, you update a Deal and offer a 20% discount to close it quickly. Company policy allows up to 10% without approval; anything above that requires approval from the Regional Sales Manager.

Approval Flow:

• Condition: Discount > 10%
• Approver: Regional Sales Manager
• Action: Deal update is locked
• Outcome: Once approved, the updated pricing is finalized

This ensures margin protection even during on-field negotiations.

Visit Expense Approval

Example Scenario: As a field sales rep, you submit travel and accommodation expenses totaling ₹8,000 after a customer visit.

Approval Flow:

• Condition: Expense Amount > ₹5,000
• Approver: Area Sales Manager
• Action: Expense record remains pending
• Outcome: Approved expenses move to reimbursement processing

This prevents inflated or unauthorized expense claims.

Special Pricing Request (Quote from Field)

Example Scenario: As a field sales rep, you create a Quote with special pricing for a customer in the mobile app.

Approval Flow:

• Condition: Manual price override applied
• Approver: Sales Manager
• Action: The quote cannot be shared with the customer until it is approved
• Outcome: Approved quote is sent to the customer

This maintains centralized pricing control.

Attendance or Check-in Exception Approval

Example Scenario: You check in outside the designated geo-fenced location or outside business hours.

Approval Flow:

• Condition: Location mismatch or late check-in
• Approver: Reporting Manager
• Action: Exception flagged for approval
• Outcome: Approved check-in is validated for reporting

This ensures discipline in field reporting and GPS-based attendance tracking.

References

• Approvals in Vtiger CRM
• Approval Process for Quote Discounts