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Overview

Delegation lets someone else act for you in Smartbills. An executive assistant submitting expenses for a director, or a colleague approving reports while an approver is on leave, both work through delegation rather than by sharing a password or handing over a role. Find it at Settings > Organization > Delegation.
Everyone can set up a delegate, whatever their role. It is a personal arrangement rather than business configuration.

Why not just share access

Two reasons, and both matter if you are ever audited. Sharing credentials makes every action look like yours, so nobody can tell afterwards who actually approved a claim. Promoting someone to a higher role gives them far more than the specific thing you needed covered, and it usually outlives the absence that prompted it. Delegation avoids both. Actions taken by a delegate are recorded against both people, and the arrangement is visible and revocable.

Set up a delegate

1

Open delegation settings

Go to Settings, then Delegation under the Organization group.
2

Choose who acts for you

Select the colleague. They must already be a member of the same business.
3

Confirm

Delegation is a two-sided relationship, so the request is recorded and the other person is aware of it rather than being silently given access.

Requests from others

Someone asking to act on your behalf appears as a request for you to accept or decline. Review these carefully. Accepting grants a real ability to act in your name.

What a delegate can do

A delegate acts within your permissions, not their own. Delegating to a colleague does not grant them anything you do not have, and it does not raise their own access anywhere else.

Every delegated action is attributed

Actions taken through delegation record both the delegate and the person delegated for. An approval made on your behalf shows as exactly that in the audit log, so the trail stays intact. See Audit log.

Ending a delegation

Remove the delegate from the same settings page. Access stops immediately. Actions already taken remain in the record, as they should.
Delegations set up for a specific absence do not expire on their own. Review the list when someone returns from leave, changes role, or leaves the business.

Roles & permissions

What your delegate inherits

Audit log

How delegated actions are recorded