Approving bills by email, or on a route: what changes

Most businesses start approving bills the same way: someone forwards the PDF, someone replies "approved", and the bill gets paid. It costs nothing to set up, and for a handful of invoices a month it works.

It stops working quietly, and usually all at once.

What the email thread leaves out

Who decides is in someone's head. Which bills need the director and which the site manager can sign is a habit, not a rule. When the person who knows is away, bills wait or get waved through.

The approver approves the PDF, not the bill. They see the document, not whether it matches the order, whether the VAT adds up, or whether the bank account changed since last month.

The record is in an inbox. "Approved" lives in one person's mail, not on the invoice. Six months later, at the auditor's question, someone searches for it.

Nothing says what's waiting. A forwarded invoice that nobody answered looks exactly like one that was never sent.

What an approval route changes

A route writes the habit down. In DocuBite, a route is a list of stages, and conditions on the supplier, account, amount or document type decide which route a bill takes. The route is fixed when the approval starts, so changing a rule later doesn't change a decision already under way.

Each approver sees their own list, Ready to Approve: every bill whose current stage they can decide. A bill that can't be decided yet stays on the list, marked Not eligible, with the reason.

The decision is one of three: Approve, Reject, or Send back for review with a reason, which returns the bill to review without ending the approval. Each decision is recorded on the invoice, under its status, with who and when.

Approvers hear about waiting bills at most once an hour, and can turn the emails off in one click.

What a route asks of you

A route takes setting up: someone has to decide the stages and conditions in Admin, and keep them current when people change jobs. For a business with ten invoices a month and one person who pays them, the email thread may honestly be enough.

The point to switch is usually one of these: a second approver, a supplier you've been caught out by, an audit question you couldn't answer, or a bookkeeper who needs to know who to chase.

Side by side

• Who decides: a habit in the thread; a written route of stages and conditions.
• What the approver sees: the PDF; the bill with its checks and their reasons.
• The record: a reply in someone's inbox; a decision on the invoice, with who and when.
• What's waiting: guesswork; each approver's Ready to Approve list.
• Setup: none; routes to set up in Admin, and keep current.