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Try now for FreeMakersHub automates and simplifies accounts payable (AP) for businesses with complex operations and high payment volumes. Our solution streamlines bill capture, coding, approval routing, and payment processing, giving finance teams real-time visibility into project costs and cash flow. Learn more today.
Managing invoices is one of the most critical but time-consuming parts of accounts payable. Every business depends on accurate, timely approvals to maintain vendor relationships, prevent fraud, and keep cash flow predictable. Yet for many finance teams, the invoice approval workflow still lives in email threads, paper folders, or shared drives that slow everything down.
A modern approval process doesn’t just move invoices faster. It gives your business complete visibility into every bill, ensures compliance with company policy, and prevents costly errors before payment. When paired with purpose-built AP software, it becomes the backbone of financial control and audit readiness.
In this guide, we’ll walk through how today’s best teams structure their invoice approval workflows, what tools matter most, and how MakersHub brings true automation and visibility to every step.
An invoice approval workflow is the process your business uses to review, verify, and authorize bills before they’re paid. It ensures each invoice is valid, matches a purchase order or contract, is correctly coded, and is approved by the right person.
At its core, the process answers two key questions:
When these questions are answered consistently, the organization maintains better cost control, cleaner books, and stronger relationships with vendors.
A well-designed workflow moves seamlessly from intake to authorization with no gaps or duplication. Below is the typical structure used by high-performing finance teams.
1. Invoice intake and capture
Invoices arrive via email, upload, or scan. The system automatically ingests the document, extracts vendor, amount, date, PO number, and line-item details.
2. Data validation and coding
Key data points are cross-checked against purchase orders or contracts, ensuring accuracy before approval. Each expense is coded to the correct GL account, department, and project.
3. Routing for approval
Invoices are automatically sent to the right approvers based on vendor, department, dollar amount, or project.
4. Payment authorization
Once approved, finance confirms payment details and releases funds from the appropriate account. Segregating approval from payment authorization ensures security and compliance.
5. Audit trail and reconciliation
Every action—upload, edit, approval, or rejection—is timestamped. The data syncs automatically with accounting systems like QuickBooks, Sage Intacct, or NetSuite.
This structure keeps the process controlled yet efficient, freeing teams from manual tracking and endless follow-ups.
Most approval delays don’t come from vendor issues but from broken internal processes. Common challenges include:
These issues create stress at month-end and lead to errors, late fees, or even compliance risks. The solution isn’t just speed, it’s smarter structure powered by clean data.
Automation is only as good as the data feeding it. Many AP systems attempt to speed up invoice approvals without addressing the quality of bill data. This simply accelerates mistakes.
MakersHub solves this through its Clean Data architecture, capturing and structuring every invoice down to the line item. That means vendor, SKU, quantity, amount, GL code, and project are identified automatically. Approvals can then be routed intelligently based on context, not just dollar thresholds.
With structured data, workflows move from reactive to proactive, reducing risk and improving insight.
Different invoices require different levels of scrutiny. MakersHub allows businesses to design contextual, multi-step approval workflows that adapt to real-world conditions.
Examples include:
Contextual routing ensures every invoice gets the right review, without unnecessary slowdowns. Approvers only see what’s relevant to them, keeping the process simple but controlled.
In many organizations, the same person who approves a bill also releases payment. While convenient, this creates unnecessary risk. The best finance teams maintain a clear separation between bill approval and payment authorization.
MakersHub’s platform enforces this separation automatically. Bills are first approved based on accuracy, coding, and budget fit. Only then does payment authorization occur, with clear visibility into account, amount, and timing. This layered control reduces fraud, prevents duplicate payments, and strengthens financial governance.
Moving from manual approvals to automated workflows is easier than most teams expect. The process typically includes:
Once live, the system quickly reveals bottlenecks, making continuous improvement straightforward.
The most efficient workflows connect directly to the accounting system to keep records synchronized. MakersHub offers deep, two-way integrations with leading tools like QuickBooks and Sage Intacct. Every invoice, approval, and payment automatically syncs, eliminating manual reconciliation.
For firms handling multiple entities or clients, this also ensures consistency. The system acts as a single source of truth for both AP operations and financial reporting.
Across industries like construction, trade services, and nonprofits, teams using MakersHub report measurable ROI within weeks. In the Liberty Fence Supply case study, the multi-branch fencing contractor with seven operational footprints transformed its AP process from paper-based chaos into a fully automated system of record.
Before MakersHub, Liberty’s accounts payable process was manual and fragmented. Branch managers printed and mailed invoices to a central office, where a single AP staff member reconciled them before the owner could issue payments. The result was slow approvals, inconsistent visibility across branches, and lost opportunities for vendor discounts.
After adopting MakersHub, Liberty centralized bill capture, automated approval routing, and enabled direct two-way sync with QuickBooks. The company now processes every invoice digitally, with AI-powered line-item capture and automated term recognition that flags early-pay opportunities automatically.
The results:
“MakersHub has completely changed how we handle AP. I know every bill has been reviewed, I can pay vendors faster, and we’re saving real money with discounts we used to miss,” says Santo Pernicano, General Manager at Liberty Fence and Supply.
Today, Liberty’s AP process runs on clean, structured data. No paper, no bottlenecks, and no uncertainty. Month-end reconciliation that once took weeks now takes days, empowering managers to focus on growth instead of chasing approvals.
Businesses adopting structured, automated workflows often see measurable gains within one quarter:
When invoice approval becomes structured and automated, it unlocks deeper visibility into business health. Finance leaders gain real-time insight into spending patterns, vendor reliability, and budget deviations. Every approval strengthens data integrity, enabling smarter decisions and cleaner books.
MakersHub’s goal is not just faster AP, it’s smarter AP. The platform helps teams eliminate busywork while maintaining control, compliance, and confidence in every transaction.
An efficient invoice approval workflow is the backbone of healthy accounts payable. Done right, it keeps vendors paid on time, safeguards against fraud, and preserves your team’s sanity.
MakersHub empowers finance teams to move beyond basic AP speed and into true AP control. With contextual approvals, line-item data capture, and deep accounting integrations, you can run approvals that fit your business, not the other way around.
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