Bill approval workflows give you control over which bills require review before they can be paid. You can set up workflows based on bill amount, the person who created the bill, or the vendor — and assign the right approvers for each scenario. This guide walks you through everything you need to create a bill approval workflow in your Melio account.
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 bill they created 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 bills created by an Owner or Admin, you must explicitly select them (either as specific users or by selecting the "Owner" or "Admin" role) under the relevant criteria.
- Existing bills: Bills created before setting up the approval workflow won’t require approval.
- Accounting software: Bill approval workflows do not apply to bills synced from accounting software (e.g., QuickBooks). Only bills created or imported directly in Melio are subject to approval workflows.
Setting up a bill approval workflow
A bill approval workflow can only be created when there is more than one user who has access to your company account.
1- Sign in to your Melio account.
2- In the Pay Bills dashboard, select the Approvals tab. The account owner and all admins in a company will see an Approvals tab with bills that require approval.
3- Select Manage workflows. You'll be taken to the Settings page.
Alternatively, you can set up a bill 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 Bill approval.
6- On the Add a bill approval workflow page, set the criteria for when a bill requires approval. You can set it according to bill amount, bill creator, or bill vendor.
- Setting bill approval according to bill amount
This allows you to set bill approval for when a bill is a certain amount.
a. Select Bill 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 bill approval according to bill creator
This allows you to set bill approval for when a bill is created by a specific person.
a. Select Bill creator 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.
- Setting bill approval according to bill vendor
This allows you to set bill approval for when a bill is sent to a specific vendor.
a. Select Bill 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 bills over a certain amount created by a specific user.
You can combine up to three conditions within a single workflow to further refine your approval process.
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 bill. The chosen team members will be notified whenever there is a bill waiting for their approval.
- 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 combine up to three steps within a single workflow to further refine your approval process.
d. Select an additional approver from the dropdown list.
10- Once your workflow is set up, select Save workflow.
That's it! The bill approval workflow has been added and will apply to any new bills that match the workflow's conditions.
If the only eligible approver assigned to a workflow is removed from your account, the workflow will be automatically deleted. Any bills that were pending approval under that workflow will proceed without approval.
Bill approval workflows do not apply to bills synced from accounting software (e.g., QuickBooks). Only bills created or imported directly in Melio are subject to approval workflows.