Operations · Approvals
VanVed vs Keka
for Approvals
Why businesses choose VanVed over Keka
VanVed routes a leave request, an expense and a purchase order through one engine an admin configures once, while Keka's chains are set up module by module — and Keka's entry plan costs more per month than VanVed's per year. The reconciliation guard is genuinely unusual: deciding a leave directly while an approval is in flight cancels the approval with an explanatory note instead of leaving two records disagreeing.
Capability by capability
Every row below is what our 2026 research found — including the rows we lose.
| Capability | VanVed | Keka |
|---|---|---|
| One shared engine across modules | Yes — leave, expenses, purchase orders and custom requests all run the same flow, step and decision code | Approval chains are configured separately inside each module |
| Amount-threshold routing | Yes — on the flow and on the individual step, so a second approver appears only above a figure | Yes |
| Multi-level chain with manager as an approver | Yes — the requester's direct manager is a step type; there is no level-2 manager or department-head option | Yes, including multiple management levels and HR |
| Auto-approval if nobody acts | None | Yes, configurable per leave type |
| Raise a request on someone else's behalf | No — the requester is always the logged-in user; an HR admin can file the underlying leave, but not route it for someone | Yes — managers apply for leave and encashment on behalf of employees |
| Single inbox for everything awaiting you | Yes — waiting-on-me, mine and (for admins) everything, in one screen | Yes, a unified task inbox |
| Protection against a decision made outside the flow | Yes — if the underlying record was decided directly, the request cancels itself with a note and returns a conflict rather than contradicting it | Not applicable — there is no second decision path |
| Mobile approvals | None | Yes |
Where Keka is ahead of us today
Keka closes the human gaps VanVed leaves open: auto-approval when a manager sits on a request, filing and approving on an employee's behalf, and approving from a phone. VanVed's manager step also only ever means the direct manager — there is no skip-level, department-head or HR-role approver — though a step that resolves to nobody now falls back to the organization's admins and records that fallback on the timeline, rather than stalling the request.
We publish this because a comparison that only flatters us is worth nothing to you. If one of these gaps is the thing you actually need, Keka may well be the better buy.
What VanVed's Approvals module does
- Configurable flows
Build multi-step approval chains for leave, expenses, purchase orders or ad-hoc requests.
- Waiting on me
Approvers see exactly what is waiting on them, not a shared inbox.
- Full decision history
Every step — who approved, who rejected, when — is kept.