In the ever-evolving realm of financial transactions, safeguarding assets and maintaining accountability are non-negotiable priorities for businesses worldwide. As part of our ongoing commitment to make financial operations smarter, we recently unveiled a suite of cutting-edge approval policies and limits designed to fortify security measures and enhance operational efficiency.
With newly updated approval policies and limits, here’s a brief rundown on how you can now better use XTRM:
Build security redundancy – set approval policies
The advanced approval policies bring a new level of security redundancy to financial transactions. These policies are not just about traditional approvals but incorporate intelligent mechanisms for analyzing transaction patterns and flagging potentially risky activities. By adopting a ‘maker/checker’ approach, organizations can ensure that critical transactions undergo a secondary layer of approval, reducing the risks associated with fraudulent or unauthorized activities significantly.
In combination with the customizable user controls, the additional approval policies make it so that a manager can build in redundancy of controls. Not only can the manager silo users into specific capabilities, but even those capabilities permitted to the user can be overseen and prevented with the approval policies.
For example: the manager can configure the user controls to only be able to fund a limited list of wallets within a specific entity within XTRM, in addition to this an approval policy can be configured to prevent the user from performing any financial action without the oversight and approval of the configured manager.
Create hierarchy and silo user responsibility with entities and users
Clear hierarchies and delineated user responsibilities within entities are now even better. Entities serve as distinct units within an organization, with each entity having its designated set of approved users responsible for authorizing specific transactions. The updated structured approach streamlines decision-making processes, fosters accountability, and ensures that financial actions are sanctioned by authorized personnel at appropriate levels.
XTRM’s entity and hierarchical structure is especially helpful for international or regional companies that may have separate teams using the XTRM Platform for different programs. You can separate wallets and users by entity and further limit users on an individual basis to prevent errors and fraud. One example of this could be a hypothetical American company (EXCorp) with an additional office in the UK. EXCorp may want to create a separate entity for EXCorp UK in order to separate those users from the main instance of the platform, and prevent UK users from accidentally interacting with the EXCorp US wallets.
Additionally user functionality and visibility can be toggled on and off on a per user basis. This means you can hide wallets or prevent certain actions, such as transferring out of XTRM, for specific users. Using our previous hypothetical example, let’s say there are 3 users of EXCorp UK. User 1 is a higher level finance team member, User 2 a lower level finance user, and User 3 is a marketing manager.
User 1 could be set up as a Controller or Manager User giving them full access to everything on the XTRM platform (note Controller user controls multiple entities, Manager user controls 1). User 2 could be set up as a custom user and limited to only specific wallets, or limited to only funding the wallet or transferring out, depending on their role’s requirements. User 3 may have no need to perform any functions on XTRM but may require visibility on the transactions taking place, they could be set up as custom users with only the ability to view Wallets and payments. This is just one example, as everything you see and do within the platform can be turned on or off on a per user basis, giving you unmatched freedom for creating internal controls and setting best practices.
Set limits and controls on your financial activity – transfer to bank approval policy and set limits
With the smarter Transfer to Bank approval policy, organizations now have upgraded flexibility to set precise limits and controls on outgoing transfers. By defining minimum and maximum thresholds for transaction approval across different levels, businesses can proactively prevent theft and mitigate financial risks effectively.
The approval policies make it so that customizable limits can be set on any wallet within XTRM, with the ability to toggle which users can approve the transfers. There can be a lower limit set beneath which no approval is required, as well as three approval levels with assigned ‘checker’(s) and a maximum transfer limit. The bounds of these levels, for example: $0-$1000 level 1, $1001-$2000 level 2 and $2001-$5000 level 3, determine which users are able to approve the transfer. For each of these levels, ‘checkers’ are toggled on or off when configuring the approval policy, typically users with less authority are assigned to the lower level transfers, and users with more authority are assigned to the higher level, more stringent thresholds for approval.
Webinar Recap
Last April 3, 2024, we held the XTRM exclusive webinar entitled “New and Improved Approval Policies and Limits: Empowering your Financial Operations.” This is where we delved deep into the intricacies of these innovative policies and their transformative impact on financial workflows.
XTRM Webinar Q&A
Here are some of the key exchanges from the interactive session of the webinar:
- Approval Policy Feature Availability
USER QUESTION: Are approvals specific to XTRM Choice?
TEAM XTRM: Not necessarily specific to XTRM Choice. It’s really [available] for any company account that does have a desire to have these initial approvals added. So for example if you were only a beneficiary and you were receiving direct payments, and you had approval policy in place rather than it going direct, it would actually trigger an approval. So you could use it Choice or Direct. It kind of takes away some of the benefits of receiving the payment direct if you add an approval step, but it’s certainly possible. XTRM is very configurable and we can really match any use case in terms of security and enterprise structure.
USER QUESTION: What happens when the admin leaves the company and doesn’t cancel their access?
TEAM XTRM: So when the admin leaves the company, essentially, we will need that admin status transferred to another use in the company. And that’s just done by submitting a ticket to our support and they’ll connect with you directly.
Alternatively, we recommend, when somebody’s leaving the company, they transfer their master admin status prior to leaving. That can be done directly by the master administrator in the platform.
- Approval Policies per Wallet Setup
USER QUESTION: Can different wallets have different options, or does the master account setup dictate all the wallet setups?
TEAM XTRM: Approval policies are tied to a specific wallet, so you can have separate approval policies for each of your wallets. The big benefit of that is, like you said, if you have one where you want to receive direct payments, and one were you might want to have a secondary approval. You can also have that be the case for just maybe you have different programs where the relevant payment size thresholds are going to be be different. So you want to create a specific approval policy that’s specific for each wallet that that program is tied to.
The webinar also underscored how these new policies enhance operational efficiency by automating approval workflows, reducing manual intervention, and leveraging advanced analytics for informed decision-making. Watch the full video here.
Embracing these innovative policies isn’t just about meeting compliance standards; it’s a strategic imperative for organizations seeking to thrive in today’s digitally interconnected financial landscape. By harnessing the power of smarter approvals, robust security measures, and proactive theft prevention strategies, businesses can navigate financial complexities with confidence and resilience, driving sustainable growth and success.
