Approving an invoice is a business decision step that marks it as authorised for payment. The approval workflow helps organisations maintain control over their expenditures by ensuring proper authorisation before payment.
Note
It's important to understand that the "approve" action has nothing to do with whether the invoice reaches your Banqup space, or it is sent to your accountant and to integrations.
There is no action to prevent e-invoices coming into your Banqup space. If you receive an invoice with which you don't agree, you can still mark it as refused and request a credit note to the supplier.
For PDF invoices, there is a validation required (invoices in "Awaiting validation" status) but it is purely a data validation task after the OCR, not a business decision.
What happens when you approve an invoice?
The invoice becomes visible in the Outbound Payments as ready for payment.
How to approve invoices
To approve invoices in Banqup:
If your space uses the Purchase assistant and Purchase responsible roles, approval takes two steps instead of one. See Two-step approval for purchase invoices below.
Navigate to Purchase Invoices
Select one or multiples invoices.
Click the Approve button.
Approving several invoices at once
Go to Purchase Invoices.
Select the invoices you want to approve.
Click the Approve button. A review window opens with the full list of selected invoices.
If any invoice has a validation error, it's flagged in the list. You have two options:
Click the remove icon next to a flagged invoice to take it out of the selection, then fix it separately later.
Remove any other invoice from the selection if you change your mind about approving it.
When the list contains only the invoices you want to approve, click Approve to confirm.
💡 Best practices
Review invoice details carefully before approval.
Monitor approved invoices through Outbound Payments.
Two-step approval for purchase invoices
Some organisations want a second pair of eyes on a purchase invoice before it is authorised for payment. Banqup supports this with two user roles that split the approval into two steps.
How the two steps work
A user with the Purchase assistant role opens the invoice and clicks Approve. This records the first approval, and the invoice moves to the Awaiting final approval status.
The Approve button is then hidden for that user. A Purchase assistant cannot complete the approval alone.
A user with the Purchase responsible role opens the same invoice and clicks Approve. This completes the approval, and the invoice is authorised for payment.
You can filter on Awaiting final approval in Purchase Invoices to see every invoice waiting on a final approver.
Invoices that skip the second step
Self-billing invoices, because you issued them yourself on your supplier's behalf.
Invoices from a business partner you marked as a Trusted supplier.
Note: Roles are assigned per user in your space. To check or change who holds the Purchase assistant and Purchase responsible roles, see Editing user roles.
External approval for purchase invoices
You can route Purchase Invoices to an external app for approval before they continue through your workflow. This gives you tighter control over which documents are allowed to move forward.
Turn External approval on or off for purchase documents in your Inbox app settings. You get a confirmation message when the setting is saved.
When it is on, a purchase invoice shows Awaiting external approval while the external app reviews it. Internal users cannot approve, refuse, or dispute it during this time.
When it is off (the default), invoices follow the normal internal flow and show Awaiting approval for internal review.
Note: External approval is off by default, so your existing workflows are unaffected until you turn it on.