QuickBooks online Bill Approval Workflow

Hello, LunaJohn. 

Yes, you can pull in bill details into QuickBooks and then use approvers via the Bill Approval Workflow in QuickBooks Online! However, this is available in QuickBooks Online Advanced. 

To find out more about workflows, you can read these articles: 

• Create custom workflows in QuickBooks Online Advanced 
• How to set up and use bill approval workflows in QuickBooks Online Advanced 

Additionally, visit our Email receipts and bills to QuickBooks Online page for more insights about customizing an email address, and forward images of receipts and bills. Then review, categorize your bills and receipts. 

Keep me in the loop if you have other concerns in QuickBooks. I’m always around to back you up. Have a great weekend and stay safe!

Thank you for the quick reply - I'm wondering if you can include detail in the email with the bill attached, ie: "Hi - this is the bill for the fuel from the last minute trip to Chicago last week" that level of anecdotal "memo" wouldn't be printed on the receipt, so is there a way to ingest free text from the email and associate it with the invoice so approvers can see that anecdotal information? sort of like a written "bill justification"? 

You can add bill details to the email you'll send to your approver, LunaJohn.

You can choose to send an email to someone within the company. Define the subject and body or use the defaults. Let me show you the steps that you can soon use once you upgrade your subscription. I'll also be providing screenshots as references.

1. Log in to your QuickBooks Online account.
2. From the left menu, click Workflows.
3. To use our built-in styles, select Templates > Create under Set up bill approval tile, or click the + Custom workflow button at the upper-right.
4. Enter a Workflow name and assign the task to your team and then the Task name.
5. Click the Send a company email box. Enter the message you want to send to your approver.
6. If you want to add other details in the email you can type #. 
7. Enter the conditions and then Save and enable.

After you create your workflow, you'll want to know how to review your open tasks or manage your workflows.

If you have any more questions, please feel free to reply to this post. All of us here in the Community are eager to help! 

Thank you, but if the non-receipt details / memo aren't on the receipt, can this be ingested via free text? 

Ex:

1. Account managers emails an invoice to Quickbooks email address, in the email it says "fuel for trip to chicago"'

2. The AP team sees the invoices come in, reviews, creates a Bill and sends through the Bill Approver workflow 

3. Can the email that goes to the Approver include the detail that came in the email with the attached receipt to the quickbooks email address? Or is free text in the email ignore and only the pDF is picked up and scraped to ingest details? if the AP team doesn't have the additional context "fuel for trip to chicago" then can't include this in the Bil itself or in the approval email. 

Great having you back, @LunaJohn.

I hope you're enjoying your Friday so far.

Any information that is included in the email will be shown. So for your example that you've included above, yes that information will show as long as you've included it in the email. 

To include the free text to the email, kindly use the steps that my colleague @Catherine_B has mentioned.

You can see many additional great details within the help articles my colleagues have shared above. 

Please let me know if you have further questions or concerns. Take care and have a great weekend! 

Thank you Tori! To confirm, free text put in an email that has a receipt attached to it will populate into a field associated with that receipt in Quickbooks, which field does the free text from the email populate into? Then that field can be included in the template which will ultimately go to the approver(which is what Catherine B was describing). I am clear on how to create a custom email to go to the approver, I am trying to confirm (I don't see it noted anywhere) that free text from an email that goes to a quickbooks email address with a receipt attached will be attached to the entry that is created. Thanks! 

Thanks for getting back to us, @LunaJohn. Allow me to chime in and add some clarifications.

The approver will be notified to review or approve work. He/she will be able to see the information you included in the email. This won't be attached to the entry that is created.

QuickBooks also creates a task. In the Task menu, you can see what work still needs to get done. The reviewer can select Approve or Deny. For more info about the process, you can refer to this article: Use workflows to send reminders.

If you wish to upgrade your plan, it only takes a few clicks. Check out this guide: Upgrade or downgrade your QuickBooks Online subscription.

We're always available to help or answer your questions about this Workflows feature. It's my priority that you find the success you need. Have a good one.

@LunaJohn 

Have you considered to open a separate Melio account for your AP team to integrate with your QBO account? You can utilize the approval workflow and don't need to upgrade to QBO Advanced.

https://melio.grsm.io/quickbooks

Thank you to re-confirm, if free text is included in an email with an invoices attached which is emailed to Quickbooks. That free text will remain in Quickbooks and can be put into the template for the Bill Approval workflow email that goes to approver? And where is that free text stored such that the field can be dropped into the email template to go to Bill Approvers? Thanks! 

Glad to have you back, @LunaJohn.

Allow me to join this thread and add some information about QuickBooks Online (QBO) Bill Approval Workflow.

Once the approver received the Bill Approval workflow email, he/she will see a link in the email that will route him/her to the Task menu.

If a workflow notifies one of your team members to review or approve work, QuickBooks creates a task. This is only the place where you can attach or upload a document. Here's a sample screenshot from my test file: 

In case you need it, I'm also adding these articles that will help you more about the Workflow feature in QBO:

• Use workflows to send reminders.
• Create custom workflows in QuickBooks Online Advanced.

I'll be around if you have any additional questions or concerns. Take care always!

Thank you - this is helpful, and I think the answer to the original question is "no you cannot include free text on an email send to quickbooks, and have that text be included in the approver email or task, the detail must be manually entered into the task." 

Thank you for the detailed layout.  

Can I create a 2nd workflow in QB Online, not Advanced?  

I would like to set up workflows of different values, one for our Finance Manager and another for our COO.

My apologies, we do have QBO Advanced, however, it will not allow a 2nd workflow.

Thanks in advance

Hey Sharon L,

Nice to see you again in the QuickBooks Community! This is an unusual situation that you are not able to add a 2nd workflow, especially when you have QuickBooks Online Advanced. Are you getting any particular messages or errors? Perhaps you could send a screenshot so I can better understand what's going on? I will appreciate that greatly! Until then, I will be on the lookout for a reply. Take care for now. 

We are trying to set up a second Bill Workflow with different titles.  Here is the error we receive.  Thanks again

Hello there @Sharon L. I'm here to assist you in resolving the problem you've experienced about workflow in QuickBooks Online.

However, we don't see the error you sent. I'd like to ask for the error message again, or send us a screenshot. This way, we can provide you with an accurate solution.

I can't paste the screenshots in the body. I tried attaching it again.

The error says "We couldn't save this workflow" "We could not enable the workflow as one active workflow already exists"

hi QB team, according to the training it states that we can set up multiple workflows, but in fact, I couldn't have more than one workflow active at the same time.

also, there is only one person allowed to approve bills, is there a way we can assign the task to someone other than the approver? so the bill will have 2 approvers instead of one.

Thank you!!

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CFO with Habitat for Humanity of Hillsborough County

Welcome to the Community, Christine 2022.

Let me share some information and guide you in managing user roles in QuickBooks Online.

If you're using QuickBooks Online Advanced, you can create an use custom workflows to automate common tasks such as sending payment reminders, or new invoices to customers, and sending reminders to your team.

Here are the article you can use as a reference:

• Create custom workflows in QuickBooks Online Advanced

• Use workflows in QuickBooks Online Advanced to send reminders

Also, you can manage custom roles in QuickBooks Online Advanced. This way, you can assign a role to a new user to approve bills.

Here's how:

1. Go to the Gear ⚙ icon, then Choose Manage users.
2. Select Users tab, then click on Add user.
3. Select Custom role, then choose from the existing roles you created. Or select + Add New to create a new custom role.
4. Enter the user’s name and email address, then Save.

I've added this link for more details in managing customer roles in QuickBooks Online Advanced.

You can also use this as your future refence in managing task for your team: Add and review tasks for your team in the Task menu.

Get back to me if you still have other concerns or follow-up questions about user roles and workflows. I'll be happy to help. Have a great day!

Christine and I are having the same issue.  I have watched the video on how to create a workflow.  It will not enable another bill workflow if one already exists.  

Maybe by saying "multiple workflows" QB means workflows on different elements, not more than one workflow on a single element

Regarding Melio.  Do you know how much it is?  Can I mark it paid or do I have to actually pay it from Melio?

Hello there, @Staci E. Appreciate you for joining this thread.

Just to confirm, are you referring to a third-party application shared in this thread? If yes, vendors, bills, and payments will be synced between QuickBooks and Melio.

With that, data from the Melio will automatically be recorded in QuickBooks. To verify the price, you can contact Melio Support. They can give further assistance and provide additional tips and ideas when using Melio. You can review their contact details in this article: Melio.

If you have any further QuickBooks issues, such as setting up advanced reporting, online banking, managing reconciliation, transactions, importing and exporting data lists, etc., you can visit our Help articles page.

Comment below if you have more questions. The Community is always here to help. Stay safe and have a good one, Staci E!

@Staci E 

You can open a separate Melio account for free.

https://melio.grsm.io/quickbooks

OK Thanks!