Escalate flagged transactions

Build a Riff workflow to route payment exceptions and approval requests to the right person — automatically, with full audit trail.

Best fit: Agent (detection and routing) + App (approval queue) ERP systems: Infor LN / M3, SAP S/4HANA, Oracle ERP Cloud, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Time to build: ~35 minutes

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What you're building

A workflow that detects payment exceptions requiring approval — transactions above thresholds, unusual suppliers, policy violations, mismatches — and routes them to the right approver automatically. Approvers see a clean queue in a Riff App; they approve or reject with a reason; the decision is written back to your ERP.

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What you need

• Riff workspace with your ERP connected

• Your delegation-of-authority matrix (who can approve what up to which value)

• Read access to invoices, payment proposals, and AP exceptions

• Write access to update invoice/payment status in your ERP

• Approver email addresses or Slack handles

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Step 1: Define your escalation rules

Build your routing table before you start:

Exception type	Threshold	Routes to
Invoice value above limit	> €50,000	Finance Director
New supplier (first invoice)	Any value	AP Controller
Duplicate invoice	Any value	AP Controller
Price mismatch	> 5% variance	Buyer + AP Controller
Payment terms mismatch	Any	AP Controller

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Part 1: Build the detection agent

Step 2: Create the agent

1. Click + New → Agent

2. Name it — e.g. "Payment Escalation Agent"

3. Brief the agent with your routing table:

You monitor the AP exception queue in [ERP]. For each exception, you apply the escalation routing table. Invoices above €50,000 are flagged to the Finance Director. First-time supplier invoices go to the AP Controller regardless of value. Duplicate invoices go to the AP Controller immediately. Price mismatches above 5% go to both the buyer on the PO and the AP Controller. You create an approval request for each flagged item and send a notification to the approver. You do not approve any payment without explicit approval from the right authority level.

Step 3: Connect and trigger

• Integrations tab: connect your ERP

• Triggers tab: schedule to run after each invoice processing batch, or set a real-time trigger if your ERP supports it

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Part 2: Build the approval App

Step 4: Create the approval queue

1. Click + New → App (or add a tab to an existing finance App)

2. Build a queue view:

   • Exception type and description

   • Invoice number, supplier, and value

   • Routing reason (why this needs approval)

   • Assigned approver

   • Days in queue

3. For each item, add Approve and Reject (with reason) buttons

4. When an approver acts, the agent writes the decision back to your ERP and logs it

Step 5: Configure notifications

Brief the agent to send:

• A notification to each approver when a new item arrives in their queue

• A daily summary of open approvals (so nothing sits unactioned)

• An escalation alert if an item has been open for more than 24 hours without a decision

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What good looks like

• No payment exception sits unrouted for more than minutes

• Approvers have all the context they need in one view — no ERP login required to approve

• Every approval and rejection is logged against the invoice in your ERP

• Finance Director can see the full approval queue and override if needed

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Variations

If your organisation uses email-based approvals: Configure the agent to send an approval request email with approve/reject links, and process the reply.

If thresholds vary by legal entity or cost centre: Brief the agent with your full delegation matrix, keyed by entity, category, and value.

If you use a third-party approval workflow (e.g. Coupa, Basware): Integrate the agent with that system via its API — route exceptions there and sync decisions back to your ERP.