Configure who should approve write-offs. Write-off approvals follow the same model as progress claims: editors create and submit, and only designated approvers can set Approved. The primary resolver gets the approval-needed notifications. Optional Can also be approved by roles are backup approvers.

Decide the primary route (for example a project role such as Project Director) and make sure that role is assigned on the relevant projects. Grant Write-Off Approval on account roles that should approve write-offs directly. Create and edit alone do not unlock Approved.

When write-off approval routing is set up, people who can edit a write-off can send a Pending or Rejected write-off to the routed approver with Submit for Approval.

Drum moves the write-off to Awaiting Approval and creates approval requests for the people resolved by the Write offs route. Submit for Approval does not approve anything - it only asks for a decision.

Only write-off approvers can set Approved. That includes:

Editors (create/edit only) cannot pick Approved in the edit modal, on the Approve / Reject buttons, or on a standalone write-off invoice's Drum Status list.

Direct Approve and Reject buttons show to approvers only while no approval request exists yet. Once a request is pending, they answer it from the approval card (or Home Approvals). An approve or reject decision records against that pending request when one exists.

Roles with Write-Off Approval also see routed write-off requests in their approvals queue.

A standalone write-off invoice (the invoice itself is a write-off) uses write-off approval routing, not Invoice routing. Setting it to Awaiting Approval routes the backing write-off. Approving the write-off then moves the invoice to Approved.

Write-off invoices do not start an invoice approval request. Notifications and emails for that flow are named Write Off, not Invoice.

When a write-off moves to awaiting approval (including via Submit for Approval), Drum creates an approval request for each person resolved by the primary route. Only those people get the approval-needed notification.

If the primary route finds nobody (for example no Project Director on that project), Drum falls back to the Can also be approved by account roles. Those people then get the requests and notifications instead.

Approval-needed notifications go out straight away when the approval request is created. Approval Settings do not have Immediate versus Scheduled (daily group) options. Those schedule choices belong to Event Triggers only, and do not drive Approval routing.

If you also set an Event Trigger for the same status change, that trigger can still fire on its own schedule. The two systems are separate.

Optional roles can approve in place of the primary approver. They are alternate approvers, not extra sequential stages, and write-off approval is not amount-tiered.

While a primary approver exists, alternates can still approve the request but do not get the approval-needed notification for that submission. They only get requests and notifications when the primary resolve is empty and they are used as fallback.

The notification names the record type. A write-off approval request shows Write Off. An ordinary invoice approval request shows Invoice. Standalone write-off invoices also show Write Off, because they use write-off routing. If the title says Invoice for a write-off, that submission used Invoice approval routing by mistake - check Settings → Approval Settings → Write offs.

An authorised approver can reject from the approval card, the Reject button (when direct actions are available), or by setting status to Rejected in the edit modal.

On the shared Approval Required card, Reject sits beside Approve, below the optional note. When the note has text, the label becomes Reject with Note. The note is saved with the rejection and included in the submitter’s in-app notification (shortened to 140 characters if needed) and the response email.

Unlike ordinary invoices, write-offs have a Rejected status. Reject closes the approval request (and sibling pending requests) and sets the write-off to Rejected. You can later use Submit for Approval again to send it back through routing.

Confirm Settings → Approval Settings → Write offs points at the intended primary role. Check that role is filled on the project. Use Submit for Approval on a pending write-off and confirm the primary people get a Write Off notification. Confirm an editor cannot pick Approved on the write-off or on a standalone write-off invoice.

Account-role Write-Offs and Write-Off Approval are listed in Drum Permissions. For rejecting an ordinary invoice approval request (invoices have no Rejected Drum Status), see How to reject an invoice approval request.