The mandate status workflow and transitions

This article describes the status lifecycle of a Strafmandat (penalty notice), which status changes are allowed, and the completion checks that must pass before a mandate can be resolved.

The statuses

Every mandate moves through a defined set of statuses. New mandates start in intake. The full set is:

• intake — freshly created, not yet worked.
• open — accepted for processing.
• in_progress — actively being handled.
• paid — the penalty has been settled.
• objection_pending — an Einspruch (objection) is underway.
• escalated — flagged by the automated deadline worker for attention.
• resolved — terminal; the mandate is closed and cannot transition further.

Change a status

Use the mandate's transition action, choose the target status, and optionally add a reason. This requires the strafmandate:view permission. Only the moves in the table below are permitted; anything else is rejected with INVALID_STATUS_TRANSITION.

Each successful transition is recorded with the previous status, the new status, your reason, and who made the change, so it appears on the mandate timeline.

The completion guard when resolving

Moving to resolved is allowed from any non-terminal status, but a separate completion guard decides whether the mandate is actually ready. If any required criterion is unmet, the transition fails with TERMINAL_COMPLETION_GUARD_FAILED and lists what is missing. The criteria are:

• Driver assignment or unknown — an active driver assignment, or an explicit driver-unknown record, must exist.
• Financial completion — total payments must cover the penalty amount, and a department cost allocation with a cost object must be recorded.
• Document attachment — at least one document must be linked to the mandate.

Note: When only the financial criterion is missing, the error message is specifically "Required financial information is incomplete", so you know where to look.

Which of these three criteria are enforced is configurable per tenant in the workflow completion settings. Changing those settings requires the strafmandate:manage permission. A disabled criterion is treated as always satisfied.

Automatic escalation

The escalated status is normally set for you by the scheduled deadline worker — for example when there has been no response after an Anhörung dispatch, or when a mandate has been inactive too long. From escalated you can move the mandate back into progress, mark it paid, or resolve it once the completion criteria are met.

Related

• Calculating and tracking deadlines (Fristen)
• The mandate timeline
• Record an objection outcome
• Assign a driver to a penalty notice