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For mid-sized businesses, no two accounts payable workflows are exactly alike. Finance teams often need to route invoices based on a unique mix of departments, project codes, GL accounts, invoice amounts, or vendor types. But most AP automation tools fall short—offering rigid routing logic or limited approval functionality.
Centime is built differently.
Whether you're in a PO or non-PO environment, Centime lets you create dynamic, condition-based approval workflows tailored to your policies—without needing IT support or custom development. In this blog, we’ll walk through what makes Centime’s approach unique, how it works in practice, and why flexibility in approval workflows is so critical for modern finance teams.
Why Complex Approval Workflows Are So Important
Most AP solutions can handle simple workflows: send anything over $10K to a director, or route vendor X to approver Y. But that’s not enough when your real-world policies look more like:
- “Route to the regional controller if the invoice is over $5,000 and tagged to Marketing”
- “Send to Legal if the vendor type is ‘Consulting’ or the GL code is 6200”
- “Split approvals by department and amount tier”
- “Handle multi-entity invoices differently depending on subsidiary”
If your current AP solution can’t flex to meet these requirements, you either work around it manually—or risk approvals falling through the cracks.
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.
Centime’s Rules-Based Approval Engine
Centime gives you full control over how approvals are triggered and routed, using any invoice field (including custom coding fields). Here's what that includes:
- Custom approval segments: Route by department, GL code, customer, project, or any other field
- Multi-level approvals: Define up to 10 tiers of approvers with conditional logic
- Policy variations by entity: Essential for multi-entity NetSuite and Intacct environments
- Auto-triggered routing: Invoices can automatically move through the workflow once critical details are captured
- Flexible support for PO and non-PO invoices: Centime doesn’t force a PO-first approach to achieve complex routing
Sample Policy Logic in Action
Here’s a sample invoice approval policy that’s easily configured in Centime:
| Condition | Approver(s) |
|---|---|
| Invoice < $2,500 | Department Manager |
| $2,500–$10,000 + tagged "Billable Client Work" | Project Manager → Controller |
| Invoice > $10,000 | CFO |
| Vendor type “Legal” or GL code 6200 | Legal Counsel (prior to other approvers) |
How It Works in Practice
In Centime, you can build workflows that mirror your actual business policies—without relying on developers or workaround-heavy configurations.
Here’s a sample approval policy you can implement:
[Invoice Uploaded or Emailed]
↓
[Critical Fields Captured (Amount, Vendor, Due Date)]
↓
[Approval Policy Triggered]
→ Segment: Dept = “Marketing” & Amount > $5,000
→ Route: Marketing Director → Finance Controller
↓
[Awaiting Approval]
↓
[Approved: Coding Missing] → AP team finalizes codes
↓
[Ready to Post] → GL Sync
↓
[Payment Initiated]
This flexibility supports both strict control and process efficiency—no matter how complex your internal structure is.
Built-In Flexibility That Speeds Up Approvals
One of Centime’s most useful features is how it handles incomplete invoices. Instead of blocking approvals until everything is coded, Centime only requires critical fields—like vendor, amount, and due date—to trigger routing.
This allows:
- AP users to send invoices for approval earlier
- Approvers to complete or edit invoice coding as needed
- Full recall and resubmit if workflows need to be updated mid-process
- Invoices to be flagged as “Approved: Coding Missing” so nothing posts prematurely
This strikes the balance between speed and control—especially helpful for non-PO invoices.
Real-World Impact
A healthcare services company came to Centime with an approval process that relied heavily on email, which often caused delays and made it difficult to track who approved what—and when.
With Centime:
- Approvals were routed automatically based on project code, invoice amount, and vendor type
- Staff no longer chased down approvals manually
- The AP team saw a significant time savings—10+ hours per week
- Vendor relationships improved thanks to faster, more consistent payments
Designed for Scale and Control
For high-volume teams, Centime can process and route up to 750 invoices at once, with plans to increase that to 1,000+. Whether you’re a finance team of 3 or 30, you get:
- Full audit trails
- Role-based access
- Automated notifications
- Real-time visibility into approval stages
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.
Why Finance Leaders Choose Centime
Centime’s approval engine isn’t a bolt-on feature—it’s a core part of our AP automation platform, designed to accommodate complexity out of the box.
Whether your policies are straightforward or deeply conditional, Centime supports:
- Custom rule logic
- Multi-segment routing
- Policy flexibility across entities and business units
See It in Action
If your current AP software is forcing you to simplify your workflows just to fit the tool, it’s time for a platform that adapts to you.
Book a demo to see how Centime helps automate even the most complex invoice approval workflows—no matter your structure.