Document approvals and client review
Business and above
Two optional controls sit on top of the standard document lifecycle for Business and Site Control accounts: a named approver who must accept each version before it can be issued, and a client review step that lets the person you share a document with respond formally.
Turn on document approvals (Business and above)
Go to the Team page and find the Document approvals card.
Owners and admins can switch Require document approvals on or off for the whole account. Off is the default — small teams can skip approvals entirely.
Optionally pick a Default approver.
They're pre-selected whenever someone requests approval; you can still choose a different approver per request.
Request approval on a document
Open the document — the Approval before issue panel shows the selected version's status.
Not requested, Awaiting approval, Approved or Rejected. While the version isn't approved, Download and Share are blocked with a clear message, and worker sign-offs for the version aren't issued yet. On a phone, those actions (and the version list) are behind the Document menu button under the document title.
Pick the approver, add an optional note, and click Request approval.
Owners and admins can request. The named approver is emailed a secure link that opens the exact version awaiting their decision, and the request is recorded in the Business review history. If the request is saved but email delivery cannot be started, the page warns you; use Re-route approval to the same approver to try the notification again.
Approve or reject as the named approver
On the document page you'll see You are the named approver for this version.
Review the document in the preview, then click Approve version or Reject version.
Rejections must record a reason.
The reason is stored against the version and shown to the team. Approving unlocks download and share, and issues any worker sign-offs the version was waiting on (the usual review-and-confirm acknowledgement still applies at issue time).
Client review through a share link
Share the document by link as usual — the recipient sees a Review this document section.
They choose Approve, Request changes or Reject, add their name (and company), and a comment — required unless they approve.
Their response appears on your document page under Client responses.
A rejection or change request also flags the document as needing review, so it shows the usual review badge until you deal with it.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to use approvals?
No — they're off by default. Smaller teams can keep issuing documents straight after the review-and-confirm step. Turn approvals on when you want a named second pair of eyes before anything leaves the business.
Who can approve a version?
Only the named approver on the request. Owners and admins choose who that is per request (with an optional account-wide default), but they can't approve on the named person's behalf — that's the point of the routing.
What happens when a version is rejected?
The rejection and its reason are recorded against the version, the document is flagged as needing review, and download/share stay blocked. Fix the issue, then request approval again — or regenerate, which creates a new version to approve.
Do workers see a document before it's approved?
They can't sign it. While approvals are on, worker sign-offs for a version are only issued once the named approver approves it — the document doesn't appear in the crew's to-sign list, and nobody can record a signature against it, until then. Approving the current version sends the pending sign-offs out automatically. One caveat: on projects with the full Site Access portal switched on, the portal's document library is a separate surface and can still display the latest generated PDF before approval — the gate controls signing, plus your team's download and share actions, not that library view.
What if our plan changes?
The approvals gate only applies while your account is on Business or Site Control. If the plan lapses, documents are never stranded — the gate stands down and the ordinary review-and-confirm step still applies.
Can my client respond without an account?
Yes. Anyone you share a document with by link can record Approve, Request changes or Reject (with a comment) — no login needed. Their response appears on the document page under Client responses.
Related guides
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