Approval Workflows for Item Journals and Requisition Worksheets

The Gap That Existed Until Now

If you've worked with Business Central approval workflows, you know the story. General journal batches had approval support baked in. But item journals? Requisition worksheets? Planning worksheets? Nothing. You either built custom workflows from scratch (not fun) or relied on trust and process discipline to make sure someone reviewed those entries before posting.

That meant inventory adjustments, consumption postings, and purchase document creation from requisition lines could happen without a second pair of eyes. And for organizations with audit requirements or segregation of duties policies, that was a real problem.

With BC28, Microsoft has closed this gap. Let's walk through what's new.

What's New in BC28:

Approval Workflows for Item Journals

Item journals now support the same batch-level approval workflow that general journal batches have had for a while. You can send a batch for approval before anyone can post it. This applies to four journal types:

 

Once a batch has an active approval request, the system locks it down. No edits, no deletes, no posting until the approval is completed or canceled. The standard approval actions (Approve, Reject, Delegate, Comments) show up right on the journal pages, along with the workflow status.

Approval Workflows for Requisition and Planning Worksheets

Requisition worksheets and planning worksheets now have full approval workflow support at the batch level. Before you carry out planning actions or convert requisition lines into purchase documents, the batch can go through an approval cycle.

When an approval request is active on a worksheet batch, the system prevents inserting, modifying, or deleting any requisition or planning lines. The workflow status is visible on the worksheet pages, and the same approval actions are available.

This is a big deal for procurement teams. Think about it: someone generates a planning run, the lines get reviewed and approved, and only then do they become purchase orders. No one accidentally carries out action messages on lines that haven't been vetted.

How It Behaves at Runtime

Here's what happens when a batch is pending approval:

If you try to modify a record that has an active approval request, BC will stop you with a message asking whether you want to cancel the approval first. It's the same pattern you already know from general journal approvals, just extended to new areas.

Setting It Up

Configuration follows the standard workflow setup pattern. No surprises here.

1.    Open the Workflows page (search for it using Tell Me).

2.    Select the Item Journal Batch Approval Workflow or Requisition Worksheet Batch Approval Workflow template.

3.    Specify the template and batch name in the event conditions.

4.    Configure your approvers and enable the workflow.

5.    Open the relevant journal or worksheet and choose Send for Approval.

6.    Track the status on the Approval Entries page.

These are standard workflow templates, which means they come ready to use. You're not building anything from scratch. Pick a template, point it at your batch, set up approvers, and go.

Power Automate Support

Microsoft has also updated the workflow events and responses to work with Power Automate. So if your organization uses Power Automate for approval routing or notifications, you can plug these new workflows into your existing flows. The integration follows the same pattern as other BC workflow events.