Who approves what

Each kind of request has its own approver: the person the request is sent to, the manager of the department, the supervisor for overtime, and approvers set per branch for loans and payroll.

HR & payroll Requests and approvals
4 min read
Updated October 20, 2026

For Manager HR officer Payroll officer Administrator Employee

The idea

Staff ask; someone with authority decides. Penahak keeps the decision with the request, tells the requester, and only then lets the effect happen: leave takes days from the balance, overtime becomes payable, a loan is deducted from pay.

Who decides

Request	Who decides	Where	What an approval does
Leave request	The manager of the employee's department, an alternate manager, or the employee's reporting person. The request also names the person it is Requested to	Leave approval, or the leave requests on the Manager dashboard	Takes the days from the balance and fills the calendar (Approve or reject leave)
Office visit request	The person it is requested to; the manager from the Manager dashboard	Manager dashboard	The days show as Official Visit in attendance (Office visit requests)
Floating holiday request	The person it is requested to; the manager	Manager dashboard	The day is a holiday for that employee (Holidays and floating holidays)
Overtime request	The supervisor named on the request, who also chooses the remuneration rule	Manager dashboard	The overtime becomes payable on the next pay run (Overtime: request, approval and payment)
Loan request	The branch's advance approver, then the branch's payment approver	Loan request and Loan payment approval	The loan can then be issued (Ask for, approve and issue a loan or advance)
Payslips	A salary approver of the branch	Payroll generate	The payslip is locked and can be posted (Recommend, approve or disapprove payslips)

An employee can cancel a request. Leave can be cancelled until its start date; the days go back to the balance at once, with no second approval.

Who sees what

A manager sees the requests of the people who report to them: the employees of the departments they manage or are alternate manager of, and the employees whose Reporting person is that manager. Set the Reporting person on the employee record (The employee record) and the manager and alternate manager on the department.

Worked example: a small company's approval set-up

The Accounts department has a manager and an alternate manager. A third person works in Sales but reports to the accounts manager.

Where it is set	Setting
Department Accounts	Department manager: the accounts manager. Alternate manager: the accounts deputy
Employee A, in Accounts	Reporting person: the accounts manager
Employee B, in Sales	Reporting person: the accounts manager. The Sales department has its own manager

Who sees the leave request that Employee B sends with Requested to the accounts manager:

Person	Sees it?	Why
The accounts manager	Yes	Employee B's Reporting person is that manager
The Sales manager	Yes	Employee B is in the department the Sales manager manages
The accounts deputy	No	Employee B is not in Accounts, and does not report to the deputy

The accounts manager is the one told about the request, and the one who should decide it. Penahak does not stop another person who has the Approve permission from deciding it, so give that permission only to managers.

For loans and salaries, the company's administrator opens the Company page, Approver tab:

Approver group (for the Head office branch)	Module given to the group	What its members can do
Head office loans	advance approver	Approve or reject loan requests on Advance request approval
Head office payments	payment approver	Confirm the payment on Advance payment approval
Head office payroll	salary approver	Use Approve and Disapprove on Payroll generate

Each member must be a working employee of the Head office branch. Until the groups exist, a loan request is refused for lack of an approver and the payroll approval buttons do not show.