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Payment Approval for Bills

Learn how to manage the bill approval process and set up payment approval workflows

Updated over a week ago

Adaptive supports a two-stage approval process for bills: Bill Approval and Payment Approval.

Bill Approval controls when a bill syncs to QuickBooks and hits your budget. Payment Approval controls when a bill is authorized for actual payment. You can configure approval workflows for either or both stages based on your organization's needs.

1. Understanding the Bills Tabs

The Bills section contains several tabs that track bills through different stages:

  • Inbox: Where draft bills land when uploaded directly or received through the email integration

  • For Approval: Bills waiting for bill approval (approval to sync to QuickBooks and hit your budget)

  • Payment Approval: Bills waiting for payment approval (authorization for money to leave the account)

  • Ready for Pay: Bills that have completed all required approvals

2. How Bills Move Through Approval Stages

Bills automatically progress through the approval process based on your configured workflows:

  • If a bill approval workflow applies, the bill waits in For Approval until approved

  • If a payment approval workflow applies, the bill waits in Payment Approval until approved

  • If no approval workflow applies to a particular stage, the bill automatically moves to the next stage

Note: If you only want one approval step (bill approval) and do not need payment approval, simply do not create a payment approval workflow. Bills will automatically move from For Approval to Ready for Pay once bill approval is complete.

3. Creating a Payment Approval Workflow

To set up a payment approval workflow:

  1. Go to the Automations tab

  2. Click Approvals

  3. Click Add Workflow

  4. In the Approval Stage field, select Payment Approval

  5. Configure your conditions and approvers

  6. Click Create

4. Configuring Workflow Conditions

Set conditions to determine which bills require payment approval. Available conditions include:

  • Amount: Require approval for bills above a certain threshold (e.g., greater than $1,000)

  • Cost Code: Require approval based on specific cost codes

  • Job: Require approval for bills associated with specific jobs

5. Selecting Approvers

Choose who can approve bills that match your workflow conditions:

  • Particular roles: Assign approval rights to specific roles

  • Particular roles on a job: Assign approval rights to roles within specific jobs

  • Particular users: Assign approval rights to specific individual users

6. Viewing Applied Approval Workflows

From the draft stage, you can see which approval workflows will apply to a bill at each stage. This visibility helps you understand the approval path before sending a bill for approval.

To view applied workflows:

  1. Open a draft bill

  2. Review the displayed approval workflows for both Bill Approval and Payment Approval stages

7. Bypassing Approvals

Users with Boss permissions can bypass approvals when necessary. This allows administrators to move bills through the approval process without waiting for designated approvers.

Important: Use bypass sparingly, as it overrides your configured approval controls.

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