Make your business more efficient by sharing responsibilities with your team while still maintaining control over payment approval. Payment approval workflows control which payments require authorization before money leaves your account — this is separate from bill approval, which validates the bill itself before it becomes payable.
Important Note:
- Plan eligibility: This is a premium feature available for Core and above subscribers. If you are a Go subscriber, you need to upgrade your plan.
- Self-approval: To maintain security, a user cannot approve a payment they scheduled themselves.
- Admin/Owner exemption: If a workflow is based only on Amount or Vendor criteria, it will only apply to Accountants and Contributors. To require approval for payments scheduled by an Owner or Admin, you must explicitly select them (either as specific users or by selecting the "Owner" or "Admin" role) under the Scheduler criteria.
- Existing payments: Payments scheduled before setting up the approval workflow won’t require approval.
Available criteria for payment approval workflows
You can tailor payment approval workflows using the following conditions:
- Payment amount: Require approval when a payment is more than or equal to, or less than or equal to, a set amount.
- Payment scheduler: Require approval based on who scheduled the payment. You can select specific users or specific roles, including Owners and Admins.
- Payment vendor: Require approval when a payment is sent to a specific vendor.
If no specific scheduler or role is selected, the workflow applies only to payments scheduled by Accountants and Contributors.
Setting up payment approval workflows
Owners and Admins can set up a payment approval workflow from two places: the Approvals tab or Settings. The steps below cover both options.
1- Sign in to your account.
2- In the Pay Bills dashboard, select the Approvals tab.
The Approvals tab is visible to users with approval permissions (Owner, Admin, and Approver roles). However, only Owners and Admins can set up and manage payment approval workflows.
3- Select Manage workflows. You'll be taken to the Settings page.
Alternatively, you can set up a payment approval workflow directly from Settings. To do this, select Settings from the bottom left of the screen, then under the Company section, select Approval workflows.
4- In the Approval workflows settings, select Add workflow.
5- From the dropdown menu, select Payment approval.
6- On the Add a payment approval workflow page, set the criteria for when a payment requires approval. You can set it according to payment amount, payment scheduler, or payment vendor.
- Setting payment approval according to payment amount
This allows you to set payment approval for when a payment is a certain amount.
a. Select payment amount is from the dropdown list.
b. Choose either More than or equal to or Less than or equal to from the dropdown list.
c. Enter the amount.
- Setting payment approval according to payment scheduler
This allows you to set payment approval for when a payment is scheduled by a specific person.
a. Select Payment scheduler is from the dropdown list.
b. Choose either Specific users or Specific roles from the dropdown list.
c. For specific users, check the box next to the selected user name/s.
d. For specific roles, choose which role/s this will apply to.
To include an Owner or Admin's payments in the workflow, you must explicitly select them as the payment scheduler. You can do this in two ways:
- Select Specific users and check the box next to the relevant Owner or Admin's name.
- Select Specific roles and choose the Owner or Admin role.
If you do not select an Owner or Admin as the payment scheduler, their payments will not require approval, even if the workflow is active.
- Setting payment approval according to payment vendor
This allows you to set payment approval for when a payment is sent to a specific vendor.
a. Select Payment vendor is from the dropdown list.
b. Check the box next to the vendor/s you would like to set.
7- To set more than one condition, select + Add condition. For example, you can require approval for payments over a certain amount scheduled by a specific user.
8 - To delete a condition, select the Delete icon next to the condition you would like to remove.
9 - Under Then do this, choose who needs to approve the payment. The chosen team members will be notified whenever there is a payment waiting for their approval.
To maintain security, a user cannot approve a payment they scheduled themselves.
- Any approvers:
a. Select Any approvers from the first dropdown list.
b. Use the next dropdown list to select the number of approvers required. Depending on the number of users, this can include either anyone, any two, or any three.
- Specific approvers:
a. Select Specific approvers from the first dropdown list.
b. Check the box next to the selected approvers. You can select up to 3 approvers per step.
c. To add an additional level of approvers, select + Add step. You can add up to 3 steps in total.
Multi-level approvals
Boost and Unlimited subscribers can set up multiple specific approvers. For a hierarchy, select + Add step to add the next level of approval (up to 3 levels).
d. Select an additional approver from the dropdown list.
10- Once your workflow is set up, select Save workflow at the bottom of the dashboard.
That's it! The payment approval workflow has been added and will apply to any new payments that match the workflow's conditions.