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Approval rules add a layer of oversight to outgoing money. When a rule is in place, a transfer above the amount you set is held until an owner or CFO reviews and approves it. Use this to catch mistakes before funds move, while letting smaller, routine payments go through without friction. This applies to every way money leaves your account: ACH, wires, and other external transfers, transfers between your own Lemma accounts, and mailed checks such as patient refunds.

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Setting up a rule

Only owners and CFOs can configure approval rules.
1

Open approval rules

Go to Move Money > Requests > Configure rules.
2

Set a threshold

Enter the amount above which a transfer must be approved. Rules apply per payment rail, so you can choose which kinds of transfers are subject to review — for example, you can auto-approve transfers between accounts in the same legal entity.
3

Save

Save your changes. The new rule takes effect immediately and applies to every transfer requested from then on.

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Approving transfers

Only owners and CFOs can approve transfers. A team member with a different role can request a transfer, but it cannot be sent until an owner or CFO approves it.
A CFO whose access is limited to specific bank accounts can only action a request if it involves at least one account they can see. For a transfer between two of your accounts, either account counts.
An owner or CFO can approve a transfer they requested themselves. Owners are the entity’s final authority over its money, so a rule set above an owner’s own transfers slows them down rather than controlling them, and a single-owner entity would otherwise be waiting on a second person who doesn’t exist. Every approval is recorded with who gave it, self-approvals included, so if you want a second person to sign off on your own transfers, keep the threshold at a level your day-to-day transfers stay under and have another owner or CFO review the rest. When a transfer crosses a rule’s threshold, it is submitted for approval instead of being sent as shown in the screenshot below.
Review step of the 'Send money externally' flow showing a transfer submitted for approval. The title reads 'Submitted for approval' and the description reads 'This transfer needs an owner or CFO's approval before it is sent. You'll be able to track it once it is approved.'

A transfer held for approval. Owners and CFOs will see an option to self-approve.

The transfer then appears on the requests page, and Lemma emails the owners and CFOs who can approve it. A CFO limited to specific bank accounts only receives emails for requests that involve an account they can see. They can disable notification emails from the notification settings page.
1

Open the request

Go to Move Money > Requests and select the pending transfer. You’ll see who requested it, the amount, and where the money is going.
2

Approve or reject

As an owner or CFO, approve the request to send the transfer, or reject it to cancel it. Approve and reject only appear on requests you can decide. A request you’ve already decided, or one you can’t decide, opens as read-only. The funds are held while the request is pending and are released back to your available balance if it is rejected.

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Cash sweeps

A cash sweep moves money automatically on a schedule. Whenever any approval rule is active, creating or editing a sweep will require an owner’s or CFO’s approval before the sweep takes effect. Once a sweep is approved, it runs on its schedule without opening a new request each time it moves money.