Bill Approval Workflows

Approval workflows let you define rules that automatically route bills to designated reviewers before they can be paid. This adds a layer of financial control to your bill pay process, ensuring that bills above certain amounts — or tied to specific vendors, properties, or GL categories — are reviewed and signed off by the right team members.

Setting Up Approval Rules

Approval rules are configured in Settings → Bills → Approval Workflows. Each rule defines the conditions that trigger a review and who must approve the bill before it moves forward.

Adding Your First Rule

1. Navigate to Settings → Bills → Approval Workflows.
2. Under Approval Rule 1, set the amount threshold using the If amount is greater or equal to and and less than fields. For example, enter 500.00 and 999999.99 to catch all bills of $500 or more.
3. Under Approval Step 1, choose how many approvers must act on the bill:
   • any — only one of the listed approvers needs to approve the bill.
   • all — every listed approver must approve the bill before it can proceed.
4. Use the approver search field to find and select the team members who should review bills matching this rule.
5. Click Save to activate the rule.

Adding Optional Conditions

Each rule can be narrowed further using Optional Conditions. Click Optional Conditions within a rule to expand additional filters:

• Vendors — limit the rule to bills from specific vendors.
• Properties — apply the rule only to bills associated with certain properties.
• Property Groups — apply the rule to bills linked to a group of properties.
• GL Categories — trigger the rule based on the accounting category assigned to the bill.

When optional conditions are set, a bill must match both the amount threshold and the specified conditions before the rule applies.

Adding Multiple Rules

You can create multiple approval rules to handle different thresholds or scenarios. For example, you might have one rule for bills over $500 assigned to a team lead, and a separate rule for bills over $5,000 that requires sign-off from a manager. To add a second rule, click + Add rule next to Add another approval rule.

Adding Multiple Approval Steps

Within a single rule, you can require approvals from more than one group of reviewers in sequence. Click Add another approval step within a rule to add an additional approval step with its own set of approvers.

How Bills Flow Through Approval

Once approval workflows are configured, submitted bills that match a rule follow this path before payment:

1. Draft — the bill is created and not yet submitted.
2. Submit — a team member submits the bill for review.
3. Needs Approval — the bill matches an approval rule and is routed to the designated approver(s).
4. Approved / Ready to Pay — all required approvals are granted and the bill is cleared for payment.

If an approver declines a bill, it is returned to Draft status so the submitter can make corrections and resubmit.

Approving and Declining Bills

From the Needs Approval Tab

The Needs Approval tab in the bill list shows all bills currently waiting for your review.

1. Navigate to Bill Pay → Bills.
2. Click the Needs Approval tab.
3. Open the bill you want to review.
4. Approve or decline the bill using the available actions.

Bulk Approving Bills

To approve multiple bills at once from the Needs Approval tab:

1. Select the checkboxes next to the bills you want to approve.
2. Use the bulk action bar that appears at the bottom of the screen to approve the selected bills simultaneously.

From the Approvals Inbox

The Approvals page provides a centralized view of all pending approval requests across bill types, making it easy for approvers to manage their queue in one place.

1. Click Approvals in the left navigation.
2. Review the list of pending requests. Each row shows the date, requester, type, status, and amount.
3. Use Filters to narrow the list by date range or other criteria.
4. Open any request to approve or decline it.

Notifications

When a bill is submitted and matches an approval rule, Topkey automatically notifies the designated approvers. Approvers receive alerts prompting them to review and act on the bill so it does not sit waiting in the queue.

Best Practices

• Start simple. Configure a single rule using just an amount threshold before adding vendor or property conditions. This helps your team get comfortable with the workflow before introducing more complexity.
• Use "any of" for flexible teams. If multiple people can cover approvals, selecting any means the bill moves forward as soon as one approver acts — reducing bottlenecks.
• Use "all of" for high-stakes bills. Requiring every approver to sign off is appropriate for large expenditures or bills that touch sensitive budget categories.
• Review your rules periodically. As your business grows, revisit your thresholds and approver assignments to make sure they still reflect your current team structure and spending policies.

Frequently Asked Questions

What happens to bills that were already submitted if I change or delete an approval rule? If you remove all rules from a workflow, any bills currently in a submitted state are automatically returned to Draft so they can be resubmitted under the updated workflow configuration. Bills that have already been approved are not affected.

Can I set up different approval rules for different properties? Yes. When configuring a rule, expand Optional Conditions and select the specific properties or property groups the rule should apply to. Bills associated with those properties will be routed through that rule, while bills for other properties will follow any other matching rules (or none, if no other rules apply).

What if a bill does not match any approval rule? Bills that do not match any configured rule skip the approval stage entirely and move directly to Ready to Pay after submission. If you want all bills to require approval regardless of amount, set your rule's minimum threshold to $0.00.

Questions about approval workflows? Contact Support.