Authorising invoices means that a person with the right mandate checks an incoming invoice and approves it before it is paid. It is the control step between receiving an invoice and paying it, and it is what makes spending traceable. In this article you can read how the process runs, who decides what, and which rules apply.
Contents
What is authorising an invoice?
Authorising an invoice, also called approving or signing off an invoice, is the step in which someone who is allowed to commit the organisation’s money confirms that an invoice is correct and may be paid. That person checks whether the goods or services were actually delivered, whether the amount matches what was agreed and whether the coding is right.
Small organisations often do this informally, with one person deciding everything. As soon as there are several budget holders, or several locations, the informal route breaks down: invoices sit in someone’s mailbox and nobody can tell afterwards who agreed to what.
Two meanings of authorisation
The word is used for two different things, which causes confusion when software is compared:
- Approving a document. A person agrees to the content: this invoice is correct and may be paid. That is what this article is about.
- Access rights. A system determines who may view, edit or delete a document. That is a permissions question, and it runs alongside the approval, not instead of it.
You need both. Approval without rights means everyone can see every invoice; rights without approval means nobody has committed to anything.
How the process runs
A digital approval runs in four steps. The first is preparation, the other three repeat for every invoice.
1. The invoice arrives and is coded
Before anyone can sign off, the invoice data has to be readable: supplier, amount, VAT and the general ledger account per line. Approving an invoice that has not been coded means the approver is judging a PDF rather than a booking. More about that step in reading invoice data.
2. Routing to the right person
The invoice goes to the approver who is competent for it. Which approver that is usually depends on the amount, the cost centre or the supplier. Above a threshold you often want two signatures, for example a department manager followed by a director. A route with several stages prevents both bottlenecks and single points of failure.
3. Signing off or rejecting
The approver sees the booking proposal with the document next to it and either agrees or rejects it with a reason, so the invoice comes back with an explanation instead of silently stalling. Automatic reminders matter more here than any other feature: the most common cause of late payment is not disagreement, it is an invoice nobody looked at.
4. Release for payment
Once the last stage is complete, the journal entry goes to the accounting package and the invoice is released for payment. Some organisations post the invoice earlier and block it for payment until the route is finished, which keeps the books current without paying too soon. The payment run itself happens in the accounting package.
Who is allowed to see what
An approver does not need access to the whole administration. Rights are usually set per user and per administration, so a budget holder sees the invoices in their own route and nothing else. That matters for more than tidiness: invoices can contain personal data, and under the European data protection rules access should be limited to those who need it.
What it gives you
- Fewer invoices left waiting. The route chases the approver instead of you doing it by e-mail.
- Spending under control. Only people with the right mandate can commit money.
- A provable trail. Who approved which invoice and when stays recorded per document.
- Fewer questions at the close. The accountant can see the approval history without asking for it.
Rules to keep in mind
Two things are regulated and differ per country. Retention periods for invoices are set nationally and run to several years in most of Europe, so check what applies where your company is registered. And personal data on invoices falls under data protection law, which means limiting who can see a document and being able to show that history. A digital route helps with both, because the trail is recorded rather than reconstructed.
Authorising invoices with TriFact365
In TriFact365 you set up the route once and decide who approves in which order, with up to five stages. Every incoming invoice then goes to the right people automatically, in the portal or the mobile app, with the booking proposal and the document side by side. Purchase invoices, sales invoices and receipts can travel a route; other document types cannot. After the last stage the journal entry goes to your accounting package, where the payment run happens. See how that works in approval routes for invoices, or read how the invoice gets there from receipt to journal entry.
Frequently asked questions
In practice they are used for the same thing: a person with the right mandate confirms that an invoice is correct and may be paid. Some organisations reserve authorisation for the formal sign-off that releases payment, and use approval for a content check earlier in the route.
Yes. You can require one of two directors to agree, or set a fixed sequence such as the department manager followed by the director. In TriFact365 a route holds up to five such stages.
Yes, where your accounting package supports it. The invoice is posted and blocked for payment, and released once the route is complete. That keeps the books current during a fast close without paying an invoice nobody has signed off.
Purchase invoices, sales invoices and receipts. Other business document types are stored and searchable but do not run through an approval route.
The record shows who approved which invoice and when, which is what an auditor or accountant asks for. What counts as sufficient evidence is set per country, so check the requirements that apply to your administration with your accountant.
