Help Center / Approvals

Approving or declining bills

When a vendor sends an invoice to your company, it might need your approval before payment. Here's how to review and approve—or decline—a bill in Light.

Review the bill details

When you click on a bill in your Tasks list, you'll see:

  • Vendor name — Who sent the invoice
  • Amount — How much is being billed
  • Invoice date and number — For your records
  • Line items — The services or products being charged
  • Attachments — The original invoice file(s)

Take a moment to make sure everything looks right. Check that:

  • The vendor is legitimate and you recognize them
  • The amount matches what you expected
  • The goods or services were actually received
  • Line items match your records

Approve the bill

Once you're confident everything is correct, click the Approve button.

The bill will then move to the next person in the approval chain (if there is one), or move on toward payment if you're the final approver.

Decline the bill

If something doesn't look right, click Decline. You can add a comment explaining why—the comment is optional, but this feedback helps the bill get corrected and resubmitted. A declined bill can be reset to draft, fixed, and sent through approval again.

Common reasons to decline:

  • The amount doesn't match the invoice
  • We never received the goods or services
  • The vendor is not approved
  • The invoice is a duplicate

After you approve

Once approved, the bill moves forward in the process. If you're the final approver, the bill is recorded in accounting and moves toward payment—depending on your company's payment guardrails, it's either scheduled for payment automatically or held for a final payment release. If there are more approvers, it goes to them next.

You'll see the bill status change in the system, and the approver after you will be notified it's their turn.

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