Manage Workstations #

Workstations are how Neo-Ledger handles sign-off. When AR or AP transactions need a second pair of eyes before they post, you route them to a workstation, and the users assigned to that workstation see them on their Approvals page. Workstations also enforce approval limits — capping how much any one user can post.

Navigate to Stations → Manage Stations to set them up.

Administering workstations requires the stations.manage permission. The end-user view of workstations is at Approvals.

What workstations do #

Each workstation is:

• a list of users who can review transactions there, and
• approval rules — one for AP (vendor) and one for AR (customer) — that control how much each side’s reviewers can approve.

When the Document Inbox creates a transaction, or when someone transfers a transaction from the form, the transaction lands on a workstation. Everyone assigned to that station sees it under My Workstations until someone approves it (posting it to the ledger).

The two workstations shipped by default #

Every new dataset starts with two workstations already created:

These come with no users assigned. Until you add at least one user to a workstation, nobody can act on transactions routed there — and no transaction can be approved. Assigning users is the first thing to do on a new dataset.

The stations list #

The main page shows every workstation in a table:

Creating or editing a station #

Click Add Station at the top, or Edit on a row. The dialog has these fields:

Only one station of each type can be active at a time. If you try to mark a second station as Default (AP & AR), Neo-Ledger will ask you to unset the first one.

Approval Rules #

Below the main fields is the Approval Rules section. You set rules separately for each side: one rule for AP (Vendor) transactions and one for AR (Customer) transactions.

A side with no rule is unrestricted. If you don’t add a rule for a side, anyone with access to the workstation can approve that side’s transactions, with no amount cap. So an AP-only rule leaves AR open to all reviewers — add an AR rule when you want AR sign-off to be limited too. The in-app banner says: “Set separate approval rules for AP (vendor) and AR (customer). A side with no rule can be approved by anyone with access to this workstation.”

Rule types #

Each side’s rule can be one of:

If you pick Amount Based, fill in the Maximum Amount field with the cap (e.g. 5000).

Important — you must click “Add Rule” #

This is the single most common reason “I can’t approve a transaction” happens. Selecting a rule type from the dropdown is not enough. You must click the Add Rule button under that side afterwards. Only then does the rule attach to the station.

The Save Station button needs at least one rule (AP or AR) attached. If Save Station seems greyed out, this is almost certainly why.

Once added, each rule shows as a card for its side (“Approve all” or “Amount ≤ 5000”) with a small delete button if you want to remove it.

Saving #

Click Save Station to confirm. The station is available immediately for routing.

Assigning users #

From the station’s row, click Users. The dialog has two columns:

• Current Users — everyone already on this station. Click the minus icon next to a user to remove them.
• Available Users — everyone else in your dataset. Click a user to add them to the station.

Adds and removes take effect immediately — there’s nothing to save.

A workstation with zero users won’t be reachable on the Approvals page for anyone, and transactions routed to it will sit until you add at least one user. After deploying a new station, double-check the user list before routing transactions there.

User defaults and posting #

The User Defaults & Posting card lists every user in the dataset and lets you set, per person, where their documents land by default and whether they’re allowed to post. Changes save as soon as you make them — there’s nothing to click afterwards.

Default routing station #

Most documents follow the station-type routing above (a vendor document to the Default (AP) station, a customer document to the Default (AR) station). The per-user default overrides that for a specific person: anything they upload, or email in from their account address, goes straight to the station you pick. This is useful when a colleague’s documents should always start in a dedicated queue.

A per-user default takes priority over the general default station, but not over the Receipt station used for bank-import postings.

Emailed-in documents are treated as vendor (AP) documents unless they arrive at a custom inbox address set to the customer side (see Email addresses below). An AR (Customer) only default therefore only affects customer documents that user uploads from inside the app, or those that come in on a customer inbox address.

Post AP / Post AR permissions #

The Post AP and Post AR toggles control whether a user may post that side of the books. Both are on by default.

• Post AP off — the user can’t post vendor (AP) transactions or invoices. On those forms the Post, Post as New, New Number, and Reversal buttons are hidden for them, and the server refuses posting even if attempted another way.
• Post AR off — the same for customer (AR) transactions and invoices.

Delete stays available. Turning a toggle off does not hide the Delete button or block deletion — a user who can open a transaction can still delete it (subject to closed-period and reversal rules). Turning a toggle off also doesn’t stop the user from approving a transaction that’s waiting on their workstation, or from transferring one to another station. This lets you set up reviewers who can sign off on and clean up work without being able to create or reverse postings themselves.

Email addresses #

Neo-Ledger can turn incoming email into bookkeeping work automatically: attach a document to an email, send it to your dataset’s inbox address, and it’s picked up, read, and routed to a workstation for you. The Inbox Email Addresses card lets you create custom addresses that decide, per address, whether what arrives is a vendor or a customer document — and which workstation it should start in.

Each address looks like yourdataset+name@yourdomain. The part before the + is your dataset; the part after it is the custom name you choose. The full address for each entry is shown in the list, with a button to copy it.

So you might give your suppliers yourdataset+invoices@… (vendor, routed to your AP review station) and your billing system yourdataset+statements@… (customer). A document sent to a name you haven’t set up is simply treated as a normal vendor document.

Custom inbox addresses need your email ingestion domain to be configured first. Until then the Add Address button stays disabled. This is an installation setting — ask your administrator if it isn’t available.

Deleting a station #

The Delete action removes a station permanently. Transactions previously routed to it keep their history (which station they passed through), but the station itself disappears from routing dropdowns. Prefer Inactive if you might want to keep the station for the future.

Activity and history #

Neo-Ledger keeps a record of every change made in the workstation area, so you can always see who set something up and when.

• Activity (top of the page) opens a timeline of every configuration change across all stations — stations created, renamed, made active or inactive, deleted, approval rules edited, and user defaults or posting permissions changed. Each entry shows who made the change, when, and what changed.
• History (on each station) opens a timeline for that one station. It combines the station’s own configuration changes with every transaction that moved in to or out of it, so you can trace how work has flowed through the station. The transfer entries are drawn from the transaction movement record, so they reflect exactly where each document went.

How rules and routing fit together #

To make a workstation actually do its job, three things have to be in place:

1. The station is active with at least one user assigned.
2. Transactions are reaching it — either through Document Inbox routing (based on the station type — AP, AR, Receipt) or through the Send to Station panel on a transaction form.
3. An approval rule is added for each side you want to gate (AP and/or AR), so users can post within their limit. A side with no rule stays open to anyone with station access.

Once that’s in place, your team members will see incoming transactions under Approvals and can open, review, and approve them in a few clicks.