Is there a way to prevent auto approval based on previous activity within the rec workflow/audit tr?

Summary:

How can we add or rearrange rules to prevent a rec from auto approving based on certain criteria? Which attributes should we be filtering?

Content (required):

After a preparer submits a rec for approval, the rec is now in "pending with reviewer" status. Before the approver approves/closes the rec, the rec gets re-opened from a $0.01 balance change. The rec then gets auto submitted and auto approved (since we have rules that auto submit/approve if less than 1 dollar).

In this case, of balance changes after manually submitting a rec, we need the rec to go back to a reviewer's queue before being approved, since the original rec/balance comparison needed manual submission / approval. No matter how small the balance change is. Is this possible to achieve? We can't figure out how to change the rules to accommodate.