Help Center / Accounts Payable

Bill Approval

Once a bill's data is complete in the Inbox and it has been submitted for approval, it moves to the Approving tab and is routed to the configured approvers. Approvers can approve or reject the bill from the detail view.

Navigate via Spend management → Bills → Approving.

Approving a Bill

  1. Open a bill in the Approving tab
  2. Review the header, line items, GL coding, and attached document
  3. Use the action buttons:
    • Approve — approves the bill and advances it through the workflow
    • Reject — opens a dialog where you can add an optional comment, then declines the bill

A rejected bill moves to the DECLINED state and appears under the Discarded tab. From there it can be reset back to draft, edited, and resubmitted for approval.

Approval Log

Each bill has an Approval log showing the full audit trail of approval activity:

  • Who was assigned as approver
  • Each approver's action (Approved / Declined / Pending / In review)
  • Timestamps and any comments added

Multi-Step Approval Chains

Bills may require multiple approvers based on your organisation's Bill approval workflow, configured under Settings → Workflows with the When bill data changes trigger. Approval steps can be assigned to specific users, user groups, the requester's manager, or the previous approver's manager. Approvers set at the vendor level are used as the default approvers for that vendor's bills. The approval log shows the current step and any pending approvers.

What Happens After Approval

After all required approvals are recorded, the bill transitions through:

  • APPROVED_ACCOUNTING_ENTRY_PENDING — finalising the accounting entry
  • READY_FOR_PAYMENT_RELEASE — ready to be scheduled and paid (this step applies when a payment guardrail is configured under Settings → Guardrails → Payables; otherwise the bill moves straight to payment scheduling)

From here it's picked up by the payment-scheduling workflow — see Scheduling payments.

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