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The Bills Approval Workflow lets you require one or more designated approvers to review and authorize a bill before it can be paid. This prevents unauthorized payments and creates a clear audit trail of who approved what and when.

Getting There

Navigate to Settings → Workflow Settings → Approvals and select the Bills tab.

Bills Approval Workflows configuration page showing an approval rule with an amount threshold and an approval step

Enabling and Disabling the Workflow

At the top of the Bills approvals settings page, you can toggle the workflow on or off.

When enabled, any bill that matches a configured rule is held for approval before it can be paid.
When disabled, bills can be paid without going through any approval process.

Disabling the workflow removes all approval gates immediately. Any bill submitted while the workflow is off can be paid without review.

Configuring Approval Rules

Approval rules define who must approve a bill and under what conditions that requirement applies. Each rule has two parts: an amount threshold and one or more approval steps.

Setting an Amount Threshold

Each rule targets bills within a specific dollar range:

In the If amount is greater or equal to field, enter the minimum bill amount that should trigger this rule (for example, 500.00).
In the and less than field, enter the upper limit (for example, 999999.99 to cover all amounts above your minimum).

This means the rule will only apply to bills whose total falls within that range. Bills below your minimum pass through without triggering the rule.

Adding an Approval Step

Each approval step specifies who must sign off before the bill moves forward:

Under Approval Step, use the approver selector to choose one or more users who must approve bills that match this rule.
Select whether approval is required from any of the listed approvers or from everyone listed (see Approval Groups below).
To require a second sequential sign-off, select Add another approval step to add another layer of review within the same rule.

Setting Optional Conditions

By default, a rule applies to all bills within its amount range. You can narrow the scope by expanding Optional Conditions and filtering by:

Vendor — trigger the rule only for bills from a specific vendor
Property — trigger the rule only for bills associated with a specific property
Property Group — trigger the rule for bills tied to a group of properties
Accounting Class — trigger the rule for bills assigned to a specific accounting class

Rules with no conditions set act as a catch-all and apply to any bill that falls within the amount threshold, regardless of vendor, property, or class.

Adding Multiple Rules

Select + Add rule to create additional rules. A bill is evaluated against all configured rules — if it matches more than one, it must satisfy every matching rule before it becomes payable.

Start with a simple rule that routes all bills above a threshold to a designated approver. Once your team is comfortable with the flow, add conditions to target specific vendors or properties.

Approval Groups

Within each approval step, you can add multiple approvers and choose how their responses are evaluated:

Any — only one member of the group needs to approve. When one person approves, the remaining members receive a notification that their review is no longer needed. This is useful when you have a team covering different time zones or schedules.
Everyone — every member of the group must approve before the step is complete. The bill waits until all required approvers have responded.

Use the Any option to ensure coverage during vacations or busy periods without creating bottlenecks.

What Happens When a Bill Needs Approval

Once a bill is submitted and matches an active approval rule:

The bill moves to Pending Approval status and cannot be paid until all required approvals are collected.
Each designated approver receives a notification by email and within the app.
Approvers can review and act on the bill from the bill detail page or from the approvals queue.
If an approver rejects the bill, the bill creator is notified and can edit the bill and resubmit it for review.
Once all required approvals are collected across every matching rule, the bill becomes payable.

Approvers can opt into digest emails to receive batched approval notifications instead of one email per bill. Each user manages this preference individually at Settings → Email Digests.

Requiring Fields Before Submission

In addition to approval rules, you can require that certain fields be completed before a bill can even be submitted. Navigate to Settings → Bill Pay → Submission Rules to configure which fields are mandatory, such as:

Property
GL code
Accounting class
Department
Location

Enforcing submission rules upstream means bills that reach the approval queue are already properly categorized, making the approver's job faster and reducing back-and-forth.

Combining submission rules with approval workflows gives you complete control: bills arrive fully coded and then go through the right approval chain before any payment is made.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can a bill be approved by the same person who submitted it? Yes. If the bill creator is also a designated approver for a rule that matches their bill, their submission can count as their approval. This prevents bottlenecks when a senior team member both creates and authorizes routine bills.

What happens if I add a new rule while bills are already pending approval? Bills already in Pending Approval continue through the rules that were active when they were submitted. The new rule applies to bills submitted after the change is saved.

Can I use approval rules without amount thresholds so that every bill requires approval? Yes. Set the minimum amount to 0.00 and the maximum to a very large number (such as 999999.99) to ensure all bills trigger the rule regardless of their total amount.

Questions? Contact Support