Automated & Manual Reimbursement Approval

Automated threshold-based approval dramatically reduces the administrative load on coordinators, who currently review every reimbursement claim manually regardless of size or complexity. For the large majority of low-value, straightforward claims, automatic approval means peer mentors receive timely confirmation without coordinator intervention, improving satisfaction and trust in the system. The manual attestation workflow ensures that larger or more complex claims receive appropriate human oversight, reducing financial risk and maintaining organizational accountability. A full audit trail supports Bufdir reporting requirements and internal compliance, providing defensible documentation for every approval decision made within the platform.

The approval engine is implemented in the Next.js backend as a rule evaluation service that runs on claim submission, comparing claim attributes (distance, expense amount, receipt presence) against organization-specific threshold configuration stored in PostgreSQL. Claims below all thresholds are auto-approved and the reimbursements record updated immediately. Claims exceeding thresholds enter a pending state and appear in the coordinator's approval queue, surfaced via the Flutter admin-facing screens and the Next.js admin panel. BLoC manages approval queue state with real-time updates via polling or WebSocket. The approval action (POST /api/v1/reimbursements/:id/approve) records the approver, timestamp, and decision in reimbursement_approvals. All threshold values are configurable per organization without code changes, stored in the settings table.