Approving Invoices for Payment

If your company uses payment approvals, the supplier invoices that need your yes or no wait for you under Approvals in the sidebar. This article is for the person who decides: the owner, the CEO, the department head.

What you see

Approvals opens on your desk: one tile for each list you decide in, showing how many you can decide now, and a short list of what is waiting for you. The Payment tile opens the payment list (on a list page, so does the Payment tab). It starts on the invoices assigned to you that are overdue, have no due date, or are due within the next 14 days (your finance admin can change the 14), earliest due date first, each on its own card. You do not need to filter anything. The number next to Approvals in the sidebar is how many you can decide now, the numbers on your tiles added up. A payment invoice that still waits for filing or bookkeeping is not counted. The Payment tile shows those on a separate line, and they stay in the payment list.

1. Views: switch between Assigned to me, Unassigned (invoices no rule could place, visible to every approver unless your finance admin switched that off, and then the views are not shown), All awaiting and Due this week. The search box above them finds an invoice in the view you are on by partner, invoice number, ID or summary.
2. What you are approving: the AI's one-line summary of the invoice.
3. Supplier and invoice ID: who is asking to be paid, and the invoice's ID in AI Finance Team. Click the supplier's name to open the invoice in a preview over the list (see below).
4. Due: the payment date and how many days are left, or how many days it is overdue. An overdue date is red, and a date within the next 7 days is amber.
5. Why you: at the foot of the card, who holds the invoice and the reason it landed with you. It is a rule your finance admin set up, a pattern learned from where earlier invoices of the same supplier went, the AI's pick, the fallback approver when nothing else applies, or a person: Assigned by a colleague, or Handed back by one.
6. Amount: the gross amount in the invoice's currency.
7. Bank account: where the money will go. A confirmed account shows its number. An amber label means someone has to look before paying: First time seen (nobody has confirmed an account for this supplier yet), Account changed (the invoice names a different account than the confirmed one), Several accounts on the invoice (more than one is printed and none is marked for payment), Account currency unclear (the account may not be in the invoice's currency) or Invalid account. When the account changed, check it with the supplier on a phone number you already know, not one printed on the invoice. If the account is changed after you approved, the payment approval panel on the invoice says what changed, who changed it and when. Your approval stands.

Approving

Click Approve on a card. That is the whole decision. A green Approved stamp lands on the card and it leaves the list. AI Finance Team records who approved, when, and exactly which amount to which payee, so a later change to the invoice cannot be mistaken for what you agreed to.

To approve several at once, tick the cards. A bar shows how many you picked and their total in each currency; click Approve selected. The confirmation lists every supplier and the totals per currency before anything happens. Approving in bulk is available only if your finance admin left it switched on.

While an invoice still waits for its filing or bookkeeping approval, its card shows Waiting for filing (or Waiting for bookkeeping) instead of Approve, and it cannot be ticked. You can still decline it.

Declining

Click Decline on the card when the invoice should not be paid as it stands. The card asks why, and a reason is required. Click one of the four quick reasons to start it, add your own words, then click Decline again. A red Declined stamp lands on the card and it leaves the list. The reason goes onto the invoice, where the accountant and the finance admin see it, and into Decisions.

Declining does not delete or reject the invoice in the books. It only says the payment is not cleared. The finance admin can reopen it once the question is settled with the supplier.

Not mine

If an invoice reached you by mistake, click Not mine. It goes back to the finance admin's unrouted tray, and the routing forgets where this invoice went. It learns again when the finance admin assigns the invoice to the right person.

Looking at an invoice without leaving the list

Click the supplier's name on a card and the invoice opens in a preview over the list. Close the preview and you are back at the same card, with the list as you left it.

The preview shows what a decision needs: the amounts and dates, the supplier and your company, the bank account, the invoice lines, the matched payments and where each approval stands. The original invoice shows beside the details, or under Document on a narrow screen. The history, the messages and the booking details stay on the full invoice page.

If the invoice has supporting documents, such as a performance certificate or a timesheet, the preview shows them under Attachments, and you can open and download them even if you see only the invoices assigned to you. See Invoice Attachments.

• The arrows at the top, next to the position (for example 3 / 12), move to the previous or next card. The ↑ and ↓ keys do the same.
• Approve, Decline and Not mine at the bottom work exactly like the buttons on the card, including the reason for a decline. An invoice that still waits for filing or bookkeeping shows Waiting for filing (or Waiting for bookkeeping) there instead of Approve, as on the card. After a decision the preview moves on to another waiting card, and closes when none is left.
• Full invoice opens the complete invoice page in a new browser tab.
• Esc, the × or a click outside the preview closes it.

To skip the preview, hold Cmd (Ctrl on Windows) while you click, or click with the middle mouse button. The full invoice page opens in a new tab.

The invoice links on your desk and on Decisions open the same preview, without the decision buttons.

What happens after your decision

• Approved and Declined invoices show the matching pill in the invoice list and on the invoice itself.
• If the amount or the supplier on an approved invoice changes afterwards, the approval is reset and the invoice comes back to you. The invoice's history says why.
• An invoice that gets paid, cancelled or rejected by the accountant while it is waiting leaves your queue on its own.

Invoices you do not see

Invoices the extraction flagged as doubtful are held by the accountant until the numbers are checked. They are not shown to approvers, so you are never asked to approve a number nobody has verified.

When your company uses filing approval, a flagged invoice that is waiting for filing is the exception: it appears in the payment list labelled Waiting for filing, because filing checks the same numbers. You can approve it only after it has been filed.

Who can approve

Approving needs the permission "Approve invoices for payment". Without the right to view invoices, an approver sees only the invoices assigned to them. By default the finance lead and the accountant admin have it. Your workspace admin can give it to anyone through a role or a per-member exception. See Roles and Permissions.

Emails

Three approval emails keep you informed without opening the app, plus a notice when somebody declines. Each has its own switch under Account, Notifications, in the Approvals section, and a one-click unsubscribe link in the footer.

• New items to approve: one email when a wave of new items ends. The app waits until your queue has been quiet for 5 minutes, or until the oldest item no email has told you about has waited 30 minutes, whichever comes first. A wave can be a single invoice. It covers every kind you approve: payment invoices assigned to you are listed; filing and bookkeeping items that became ready, or were returned, in a queue you hold the key for appear as counts per company with a button to the queue. There is no daily limit, and it runs every day, weekends included.
• Daily digest: on working days, at the time you choose (08:00 Budapest time unless you change it). One email across all your companies: payment invoices waiting for you, up to 5 per company, soonest due first, with a marker on the ones no email has shown you yet; filing and bookkeeping as counts of ready, returned with a note, and blocked items, with a button to the queue. Nothing waiting, no email. Items that are only blocked do not trigger it.
• Due-soon reminder: on working days, at the time you choose (14:00 Budapest time unless you change it), payment invoices due within 2 days that still wait for you. One reminder per invoice.
• Declined invoices: sent at once to everyone holding "Manage approvals" except the person who declined, with their note.

Working days are Monday to Friday, Budapest time. Both times are set in quarter-hour steps.

The emails link into the app. There is no approve button in an email: a decision always happens signed in, on the invoice.