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Setting up an Approval Flow for Invoices

How to leverage our approval flow feature to establish an automated invoice approval routing system tailored to suit your business requirements.

To create an invoice approval flow, please follow these steps.

1. Basic Information

  • Check the left sidebar and click on the "Approval Flows" option.
  • Click on "Add Approval Flow".
  • Give it a descriptive name. This helps with maintenance later.
  • Select "Invoice" as the document type.
  • In the "Conditions" section, specify the criteria under which the flow will activate by filling in the property, operator, and value fields. To specify multiple conditions, click "Add Condition". Each condition must pass for the workflow to activate.

In the example provided, the condition is configured to activate when the gross amount is greater than or equal to a minimal threshold. The above condition guarantees that the approval workflow will be triggered for all invoices submitted.

 

2. Approval Steps Section.

  • Each approval step may include multiple approvers and conditions that determine when it's triggered.
  • An approval step can be configured to require consent from either all designated approvers or just a single approver to proceed.

  • To add an approver or condition to an approval step, click on 'Add Approver' or 'Add Condition'. To remove, click on the dustin icon to the right of each.
  • It's possible to re-order approval steps. Click and drag on hamburger menu in the top left.

 

AI OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology is a sophisticated tool that converts different types of documents, such as scanned paper documents or images, into editable and searchable data.

"Awaiting Review" and "Outstanding" invoice status definitions.

Invoices can require either a one or two stage approval process depending on how the invoice was uploaded. In the conditions section on an invoice approval flow, select "Invoice Status" in the property field to see the two possible statuses.

 

1. Awaiting Review

When an invoice is processed through AI OCR technology—scanned through the UI or via your email inbox—it will be assigned the "Awaiting Review" status. To see these invoices, go to:

  1. Invoices on the left
  2. Invoice Inbox

At this stage, you can 'Accept' to confirm the legitimacy of the invoice's source. Review and verify the accuracy of the data extracted from the OCR scan, and match the invoice to a purchase order on your account if it was not matched automatically.


If the invoice is accepted, it moves on to the "Outstanding" status.

 

2. Outstanding

If an invoice is manually uploaded without using our OCR feature, it receives the "Outstanding" status and skips "Awaiting Review".

You can mandate the "Awaiting Review" status for all invoices, irrespective of their creation method, by navigating to the invoices tab within the company settings and activating the option labeled "Review required for all invoices."

Approval of an invoice in the "Outstanding" status moves it forward for payment processing.

 

 

An invoice review request email notification is sent to the designated approvers.

"Outstanding" invoice request email:

"Awaiting Review" invoice request email:

Still have a few questions? Use the Live Chat Icon in the bottom right-hand corner or send an email to  to get in touch with the friendly support team.


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