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If you’re using QuickBooks Online and wondering how to build an approval process for vendor bills, the short answer is: not directly.
QuickBooks is great for accounting. But for growing companies that need structured AP controls like multi-step invoice approvals, role-based routing, and audit trails — the built-in capabilities fall short.
Even in QuickBooks Online Advanced, workflow tools are geared more toward sales forms than vendor bill approvals. There’s no logic for dollar thresholds, no native routing rules, and no enforcement mechanism that stops a bill from being paid before it's reviewed.
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Our innovative AR, AP and business banking solutions are powerful alone, and even better together.
Schedule a tailored demo with a Centime expert.
Where Things Start to Break Down
At low volume, many teams get by with email approvals and a shared inbox. But once invoice counts start to climb, the cracks appear:
- Approvals go missing or get buried
- The same bill gets entered twice
- Payments happen without visibility
The reality is, QuickBooks just wasn’t built to manage the full lifecycle of accounts payable. And that’s okay. It’s a powerful accounting system, but when it comes to AP, most teams eventually need something more.
What Teams Add When They’re Ready to Scale
Rather than switching accounting systems, finance leaders are layering purpose-built AP automation onto QuickBooks: systems that handle invoice capture, enforce approval rules, and only pass finalized bills back to the GL.
With Centime:
- Invoices are auto-captured from email and scanned files
- Approval rules route bills by amount, vendor, or department
- Approvers are notified and tracked
- Only approved, fully coded bills sync into QuickBooks
- Audit trails stay intact, and payment can't happen early
It’s designed to work with QuickBooks, not around it, so your team gets enterprise-grade AP control without a major software overhaul.
See Centime in action
Our innovative AR, AP and business banking solutions are powerful alone, and even better together.
Schedule a tailored demo with a Centime expert.
Built for Finance Teams That Are Outgrowing Email and Gut Checks
What you get with Centime is structure, speed, and visibility without leaving QuickBooks behind. Instead of jumping systems, you’re simply filling the gap between receiving an invoice and recording it.
That’s why teams using QuickBooks choose to stay with it and scale on top of it.
Ready to add real approvals to QuickBooks?
Centime integrates seamlessly with QuickBooks Online and Desktop to bring structure and control to your AP process. No disruption. Just the visibility and workflows you’ve been missing.