Use workflows in QuickBooks Online Advanced to send reminders

• Automatically send unsent invoices: Send your customers invoices that haven't been sent yet.
• Payment received: Automatically email customers to let them know you received their payment.
• Payment due reminder: Automatically email customers to let them know their invoice payment is due soon.
• Overdue invoice memo: Automatically update an invoice message with an overdue or customized stamp.

• Invoice approval: Automatically create a task and send a notification to your team when a new invoice needs approval.
• Unsent invoice reminder: Remind yourself or your team to send unsent invoices to customers.
• Pay vendor reminder: Remind yourself or your team when a vendor bill is due.
• Bank deposit reminder: Remind yourself or your team to record bank deposits.

Here’s an example workflow to let your customers know their payment is due in three days.

1. Go to Workflows, then select Templates.
2. Find the Payment due reminder template and select Create.
3. In the name field, enter Payment Due in Three Days.
4. Use the Conditions ▼ dropdowns to add workflow conditions.
   • Condition #1: The invoice amount is greater than 0 (dollars).
   • Condition #2: The customer is within All, or you can select specific customers that get this reminder.
   • Condition #3: That is 3 day(s) before due date.
5. Use the Actions ▼ dropdowns to set up the actions for the workflow.
   • In the For ▼ dropdown, select the team member you want assigned to the task.
   • Select the checkboxes to send email or mobile app reminders.
6. Customize the reminder using the Subject and Message fields.
7. The highlighted fields are variables. The variables populate the reminder message with your company or the customer info. To change the variable, enter #, then select the variable you want to use like customer name, balance, or amount.
   Note: Erasing or overwriting the highlighted fields will affect all reminders.
8. If you’re still editing the workflow, select Save. If you’d like to launch the workflow, select Save and Enable.

You can use a template to create a workflow for approving invoices created by your team.

Whenever a non-admin creates a new invoice, QuickBooks checks if it meets the conditions of a template. If it does, the invoice's status becomes Needs approval. Until it's approved, non-admins can't send invoices to customers.

To create a new invoice approval workflow:

1. Go to Workflows, then select Templates.
2. Find the Invoice approval template and select Create.
3. Give your template a name.
4. In the Conditions section, set the conditions. You can set the amount, customer, location, or a combination. This is what activates the approval process. Select Add Condition if you want to add more than one condition.
5. In the Actions section, select the admin who needs to approve invoices from the For ▼ dropdown.
6. In the Send to ▼ dropdown, select who you want QuickBooks to notify when an invoice needs approval. Note: you can choose more than one person in the Send to field.
7. You can also tell QuickBooks what to do if an invoice isn't approved within a certain number of days. Enter the number of days in the within __ day(s) field. Then select the ▼ dropdown and choose Send reminder to approver or Auto approve the invoice.
   Note: If an invoice isn't reviewed after 30 days, it's automatically denied.

Now that your invoice approval workflow is set up, whenever non-admins create an invoice, an approval request is sent to the approver automatically.

Note: If an invoice doesn't meet your template's conditions, it doesn't need approval. The creator can send it directly to the customer.

Approve invoices

Here's what happens after a non-admin creates an invoice:

1. When completing the invoice and selecting Save or Save and send, the non-admin will get an approval message.
2. They’ll select Send for approval. This sends the invoice to the specified admin for approval.
3. Then the admin can go to the Tasks menu and review their open tasks to approve the invoice.

The invoice creator can review the status of the approval by opening the invoice:

• Pending approval: The creator already sent the invoice to the approver, but it hasn't been approved yet.
• Denied approval: The approver denied the invoice. However, if the creator makes edits to the denied invoice, they can request approval again.
• Approved: The approver approved the invoice. It becomes a regular invoice with no restrictions.

If an invoice is edited after it's approved, and it doesn't meet the template's conditions anymore, the status may change. You can just send it through for approval again.

Note: If you downgrade your plan from QuickBooks Advanced, you won't be able to use workflows anymore. You'll need to approve anything pending approvals before you can change your plan.