Set up quote approvals

Turn on approvals for quotes to maintain accuracy and consistency before sending a quote to a buyer. There are two types of approvals you can set up: standard approvals and advanced approvals. Learn more about each type below.

Approval types

Standard approvals

Assign one or multiple approvers to review all submitted quotes. Decide if approval from all, or just one, approver is needed.

Advanced approvals

Includes everything in standard approvals plus support for workflow-based rules, allowing for more customization.

Using advanced approvals, you can:

• Trigger approvals based on quote and line item properties such as quote amount, discount level, SKU, billing frequency, net terms, or specific user attributes, or related objects (e.g., deals).
• Use sequential approvals ranked by priority. For example:
  • Set a sales manager as first priority, a sales director as second priority, and legal as third priority. The sales director doesn't need to approve the quote until the sales manager has completed their approval.
  • Set a sales manager as first priority, and legal as second priority. Legal wouldn't need to approve the quote until the sales manager had completed their approval.

Review common approval scenarios.

Turn on quote approvals

1. In your HubSpot account, click the settings settings icon in the top navigation bar.
2. In the left sidebar menu, navigate to Objects > Quotes.
3. At the top, click the Approvals tab.
4. Under Quote approval set up, choose one of the following options (it isn't possible to have both Standard and Advanced approvals turned on at the same time.):
   • Standard approvals:
     • In the right panel, under Approval requirements, select All Approvers to have every quote approved by all approvers, or select Any Approver to allow approval by one approver.
     • Under Approvers, click the dropdown menu and select the users who will be approving quotes (you can select multiple users). Quotes created by the selected approvers don't require approval.
     • Click Save.
   • Advanced approvals: after turning on advanced approvals, you must navigate to workflows to continue the approval setup.

Customize the approval workflow

The approval workflow is created with the workflows tool when advanced workflows are turned on. The workflow has two actions you can set:

• Add quote approval step: use this action after defining approval criteria (e.g., approve quotes above a certain amount, or approve quotes by certain users). Once added, add a message for approvers, select who should approve the quote, and their priority if it's a sequential approval.
  
  
• Start quote approval flow: if a quote approval step hasn't been added above this action, quotes will be auto-approved. If a quote approval step is added, the quote approval flow will start. Set the quotes that enter the approval workflow to get approval by all approvers, any approvers, or sequentially. 

You can customize the workflow manually, or use AI. To navigate to the workflow:

1. In your HubSpot account, click the settings settings icon in the top navigation bar.
2. In the left sidebar menu, navigate to Objects > Quotes.
3. At the top, click the Approvals tab.
4. Under Quote approval set up, click workflows Quote approval workflow. The workflow will open in a new browser tab.
5. Learn how to use AI in workflows, or to customize the workflow manually, click the + below the trigger enrollment. 
   
   
6. Add your actions. For example, you could:
   • In the left panel, click Branch, then select One property or action output.
   • Select the Quote amount property, then click Next. Set Branch 1 to greater than 5,000. This would be the start of an advanced approval workflow for any quotes above $5,000. Click Save.
   • If you want quotes to re-enroll, in the left panel, click the Settings tab, and toggle the Re-enroll switch on.
   • Click Save.
7. Review common approval scenarios for other use cases.
8. Under the greater than 5,000 action, click + to add a further action.
9. In the left panel, click CRM.
10.  Click Add approval step. 
11. Add a message to the approver. You can add quote properties to the message using the Choose data variable list (e.g., quote amount, quote owner).
12. Click the Approvers dropdown menu, and select the approvers.
13. Click the Priority dropdown menu and select a Priority if this will be a sequential approval.
14. Click Save.
15. Click the + below Add approval step.
16. In the left panel, click CRM.
17. Click Start approval flow.
18. Under Approvers required, select one of the following:
    •  All approvers to require approvals from all approvers for quotes that meet the criteria.
    • Any approvers to require one approval from any of the approvers for quotes that meet the criteria.
    • Sequential to notify approvers in priority order. Sequential approvals require approval by every approver at each priority step.
19. Click Save.
20. Click the + under None met. 
21. In the left panel, click Go to action.
22. Click the Start approval flow action.
23. Click Done.
24. In the upper right, click Review and publish to publish your workflow.

Set approval notifications

Approvers can set the type of notifications they will receive for approvals in their notification settings. Bell and email notifications are turned on by default.

HubSpot-based notifications

To customize which notifications you'll receive for quote approvals:

1. In your HubSpot account, click the settings settings icon in the top navigation bar.
2. In the left sidebar menu, navigate to Notifications.
3. Scroll down and click to expand General.
4. Next to Approval activity, select which notifications you'd like to receive for approvals. Bell and email notifications are on by default.
5. These settings only apply to your own account. Other users need to set their own notification preferences. Super Admins in an Enterprise account can log in as other users.

Notifications in third-party apps

You can also get notifications in third-party apps, such as Google Chat, Microsoft Teams, and Slack. 

1. In your HubSpot account, click the settings settings icon in the top navigation bar.
2. In the left sidebar menu, navigate to Notifications.
3. At the top, click the Other apps tab.
4. Click the app you want to set up.

Grant users permission to approve quotes

• Super Admins, and users with the Approve quotes permission can approve quotes.
• Users must have a core or Commerce Hub seat to approve quotes.
• Users are notified in-platform and via email, depending on their notification preferences.

Common approval scenarios

Review common approval scenarios for use with quotes and approvals. Learn more about commonly used quote-approval properties.

• Approval for quotes above a certain amount: use the Quote amount property and trigger the workflow if quotes are above the amount set.
• Approval for quotes above a certain discount: use discount properties for quotes or line items (e.g., Discount %, Total discount).
• Approval based on a certain product: use the SKU line items property, and nest it with discounts or any other property.
• Approve from one person, then another: use sequential approvals. 
• Approvals bypassed for specific users: to allow certain users to bypass approvals:
  • Once you turn on advanced approvals, you'll see two actions: Add approval step and start approval flow.
  • Create a branch and select the Quote. On the Quote owner, select is any of, then add the users who do not need approvals.
  • Add the Start approval flow action below the branch.
• Automatically require approval for certain users: use the Quote owner property and select each user. 
• A workflow configuration where approval is needed from two distinct properties, with two different approvers. For example, line item discount with approver A and e-sign enabled with approver B: below is an example of the workflow. In this case, if line items are between 25-40%, then approval is needed from Jason, and if e-sign is turned on, then approvals are needed from Lubai.
• Approval for quotes with specific billing frequencies: use the Billing frequency line item property and set which frequencies require approval (e.g., Semi-annually).
• Approval for quotes with specific net terms: use the Net payment terms quote property. 

Common quote-approval properties

The below table shows commonly used quote approval properties when using advanced approval workflows.

The following properties aren't supported:

• Legal and contractual:

• • Contract term length (months).
  • Specific attachments always required.
  • Specific attachments not included.
• Subscription:
  • One-time fees included.
  • Bundled edited.
• Individual or team:
  • Teams.
  • Location of teams.

Next steps

• Create and send quotes.
• Manage quotes.
• Manage quote approvals.