approval-dashboard

by ramp-public · part of ramp-public/mcp-skills

Review and approve pending transactions, bills, reimbursements, and requests. Use when: 'approve', 'pending approvals', 'what needs my approval', 'review transactions', 'approve bills', 'reject', 'approval queue', 'clear my approvals'. Do NOT use for: transaction analysis, receipt uploads, or spend tracking.

🧩 One of 4 skills in the ramp-public/mcp-skills package — works on its own, and pairs well with its siblings.

This is the playbook your agent receives when the skill activates — you don't need to read it to use the skill, but it's here to audit before installing.

Non-Negotiables

Always show the item details before approving or rejecting. Never blind-approve.
Rejections require a reason. Approvals do not, but a note is helpful.
Confirm with the user before executing approvals — especially bulk operations.
Present items sorted by priority: highest dollar amount first.
Amounts vary by endpoint: bills are in cents (divide by 100), reimbursements are in dollars, transactions are formatted strings ("$135.40").

Workflow

Step 1: Fetch all pending items

Run these in parallel to build the full approval queue. Paginate each endpoint until there are no more results — a single page may not return everything.

# Pending transactions (paginate with next_page_cursor)
ramp_get_user_transactions({
  "rationale": "Retrieve transactions awaiting my approval",
  "transactions_to_retrieve": "transactions_awaiting_my_approval",
  "page_size": 50,
  "include_count": true
})

# Pending bills (paginate with page_cursor)
ramp_get_bills_for_approval({
  "rationale": "Retrieve bills pending my approval",
  "limit": 50
})

# Pending reimbursements (no cursor pagination tool surface — use limit)
ramp_get_reimbursements_for_approval({
  "rationale": "Retrieve reimbursements pending my approval",
  "limit": 50
})

# Pending requests (paginate with start; thoughts is required)
ramp_get_requests_to_review({
  "rationale": "Retrieve all pending requests for review",
  "thoughts": "Reviewing all pending requests",
  "page_size": 50
})

For each endpoint, check the pagination cursor in the response envelope. If it is not null, re-run the call with that cursor value (next_page_cursor for transactions, page_cursor for bills, start for requests) until all pages are fetched. Note: ramp_get_reimbursements_for_approval does not expose cursor-based pagination in this MCP surface — increase limit if you need more results. Aggregate results before presenting.

Step 2: Present the queue

Summarize what's pending:

Approval queue: 14 items ($23,450 total)

Bills (4 items, $8,200):
  $3,500  HighSpot        Invoice #1234    Due 2026-03-28
  $2,500  Cometeer        Invoice #5678    Due 2026-04-01
  ...

Reimbursements (6 items, $2,100):
  $  520  Michael Scott   Uber rides       Submitted 2026-03-20
  $  312  Oscar Martinez  Office supplies  Submitted 2026-03-22
  ...

Transactions (3 items, $12,500):
  $5,000  Dana Alhasawi   AWS              2026-03-15
  ...

Requests (1 item, $650):
  ...

Step 3: Review and act

For each item the user wants to act on, get details first:

# Bill details
ramp_get_bill_details({
  "bill_id": "{bill_id}",
  "rationale": "Retrieve bill details before approval review"
})

# Transaction details
ramp_get_full_transaction_metadata({
  "id": "{transaction_uuid}",
  "rationale": "Retrieve full transaction details before approval review"
})

# Transaction missing items (if relevant)
ramp_get_transaction_missing_items({
  "id": "{transaction_uuid}",
  "rationale": "Check whether the transaction is missing receipt, memo, or coding items"
})

# Reimbursement details (use get with specific UUID)
ramp_get_reimbursements({
  "reimbursement_uuids": ["{uuid}"],
  "include_policy_assessment": true,
  "rationale": "Retrieve reimbursement details for approval review"
})

Step 4: Execute approvals

# Approve a transaction
ramp_approve_or_reject_transaction({
  "transaction_id": "{transaction_uuid}",
  "action": "APPROVE",
  "thoughts": "Reviewed — within policy",
  "rationale": "Approve the reviewed transaction"
})

# Reject a transaction (reason required)
ramp_approve_or_reject_transaction({
  "transaction_id": "{transaction_uuid}",
  "action": "REJECT_AND_REQUEST_CHANGES",
  "thoughts": "Missing receipt and over budget",
  "user_reason": "Please attach the receipt and update the memo",
  "rationale": "Reject the transaction and request changes"
})

# Approve a bill — not yet available via MCP tool.
# Bill approvals must be done in the Ramp app: https://app.ramp.com/bills

# Approve a reimbursement
ramp_approve_or_reject_reimbursement({
  "reimbursement_id": "{reimbursement_uuid}",
  "action": "approve",
  "rationale": "Approve the reviewed reimbursement"
})

# Reject a reimbursement
ramp_approve_or_reject_reimbursement({
  "reimbursement_id": "{reimbursement_uuid}",
  "action": "reject",
  "user_reason": "Receipt doesn't match the claimed amount",
  "rationale": "Reject the reimbursement with a clear reason"
})

# Approve a request
ramp_approve_or_reject_request({
  "request_uuid": "{request_uuid}",
  "action": "APPROVE",
  "thoughts": "Approved — within team budget",
  "rationale": "Approve the reviewed request"
})

Step 5: Add comments (optional)

Leave a comment on any Ramp object for context:

ramp_post_comment({
  "ramp_object_uuid": "{object_uuid}",
  "ramp_object_type": "transaction",
  "message": "Approved — this covers the Q1 offsite catering",
  "rationale": "Leave context on the approved object"
})

Valid object types: bill, booking_request, card, payee, provisional_bill, reimbursement, spend_intent, spend_request, ticket, transaction, vendor_payment.

Bulk Approval

When the user wants to approve multiple items at once:

Present all items with amounts and details
Ask: "Approve all N items, or would you like to review individually?"
If bulk: confirm once, then execute sequentially
Report results: "Approved 12/14 items. 2 failed: [reasons]"

Transaction Approval Actions

Action	When to use
`APPROVE`	Item is within policy, receipt/memo present
`REJECT_AND_REQUEST_CHANGES`	Needs corrections — missing memo, wrong coding, etc.
`REJECT_AND_REQUEST_FULL_REPAYMENT`	Personal expense or policy violation requiring repayment

Example Session

User: What needs my approval?

Agent: Let me check all your pending queues.
> ramp_get_user_transactions({ "rationale": "Checking approval queue", "transactions_to_retrieve": "transactions_awaiting_my_approval", "page_size": 50, "include_count": true })
> ramp_get_bills_for_approval({ "rationale": "Checking approval queue", "limit": 50 })
> ramp_get_reimbursements_for_approval({ "rationale": "Checking approval queue", "limit": 50 })
> ramp_get_requests_to_review({ "rationale": "Checking approval queue", "thoughts": "Checking approval queue", "page_size": 50 })

Approval queue: 6 items ($4,350 total)

Bills (2 items, $2,700):
  $2,200  HighSpot        Invoice #4401    Due 2026-03-28
  $  500  Cometeer        Invoice #882     Due 2026-04-01

Reimbursements (3 items, $1,430):
  $  520  Michael Scott   Uber rides       Submitted 2026-03-20
  $  312  Oscar Martinez  Office supplies  Submitted 2026-03-22
  $  598  Jan Levinson    Flight change    Submitted 2026-03-23

Transactions (1 item, $220):
  $  220  Dana Alhasawi   DoorDash         2026-03-15

Want to review individually or approve all?

User: Approve the bills and reimbursements. Let me see the transaction first.

Agent: I can approve the reimbursements now. Bills must be approved in the Ramp app — I'll send you the links.
> ramp_approve_or_reject_reimbursement({ "reimbursement_id": "reimb-001", "action": "approve", "rationale": "Approve reviewed reimbursement" })
> ramp_approve_or_reject_reimbursement({ "reimbursement_id": "reimb-002", "action": "approve", "rationale": "Approve reviewed reimbursement" })
> ramp_approve_or_reject_reimbursement({ "reimbursement_id": "reimb-003", "action": "approve", "rationale": "Approve reviewed reimbursement" })

3 reimbursements approved. For the 2 bills, approve them here:
  https://app.ramp.com/bills/bill-001
  https://app.ramp.com/bills/bill-002

Now let me get details on that DoorDash transaction:
> ramp_get_full_transaction_metadata({ "id": "txn-001", "rationale": "Retrieve transaction details before approval review" })
> ramp_get_transaction_missing_items({ "id": "txn-001", "rationale": "Check whether the transaction is missing required items" })

DoorDash $220 — Dana Alhasawi, 2026-03-15
Memo: "Team lunch"  |  Receipt: attached  |  Accounting: complete

User: Approve it

Agent: > ramp_approve_or_reject_transaction({ "transaction_id": "txn-001", "action": "APPROVE", "thoughts": "Team lunch — receipt and memo present", "rationale": "Approve the reviewed transaction" })
Done. Approval queue is clear.

When NOT to Use

Editing transaction memos or categories — use transaction-cleanup

Gotchas

Issue	Fix
Bill amounts are in cents	Divide by 100 for display
Reimbursement amounts are in dollars	Display as-is
Transaction amounts are formatted strings	Strip "$" and "," for sorting/totaling
`requests pending` requires `--thoughts`	Always include it — describe what you're doing
Bill approvals are not yet exposed in this MCP surface	Send the user to the Ramp app for bill approval
No undo for approvals	Confirm with user before executing. Consider dry-run style confirmation in chat before write calls.
Pagination varies	Check the response cursor fields. Pass them via `next_page_cursor` (transactions), `page_cursor` (bills), `start` (requests). Reimbursements: `limit` only in this MCP surface.