Managing bill approvals in BILL (formerly Bill.com) is an important part of maintaining accurate financial workflows. However, sometimes a bill may be mistakenly approved, requiring you to unapprove it. 

How Approvals Work In Bill.com

Before diving into unapproval, it’s helpful to understand the standard approval flow.

  • Being a billing and invoice software, Bill.com approves bills and vendor credits through the ‘Approvals’ page or the ‘Bill Approvals’ tab on the ‘Overview’ page
  • You can filter bills by the vendor’s name, the bill type, the due date, or the date the bill was created to make it easier to find what needs approval
  • If you work with a team, you can also set up ‘Approval Groups’, allowing multiple users to be involved in the approval process
  • Approval flows are customizable based on your business needs, giving flexibility in how bills move through review stages

How To Unapprove A Bill Or Vendor Credit

To unapprove a bill (or vendor credit) in Bill.com, you need to remove all assigned approvers from the bill.
Here’s how you can do it step-by-step: 

  • Go To Bills: In the left-hand navigation menu, select ‘Bills’
  • Open The Bill: Click on the specific bill or vendor credit you want to unapprove
  • Access Audit Trail: Click on ‘More Actions’, then select ‘Audit Trail’ to view the bill's history and changes
  • Edit Approvers: Hover over the ‘Bill Details’ section and click on ‘Approvers’
  • Remove Approvers: Select ‘del all’ to remove all listed approvers from the bill

After all approvers have been removed, the bill will no longer be marked as approved.

Important Things To Keep In Mind

Even when a bill is unapproved, administrators can still schedule and pay it. This means a bill doesn’t have to be approved in order to move forward for payment, though approval is recommended for internal controls.

All changes, including removing approvers, are recorded in the ‘Audit Trail’ for full transparency.

Leveraging The Power Of Bill.com

Unapproving a bill in Bill.com is a simple but powerful tool if you need to make changes to a bill after it’s been initially reviewed. By removing all approvers, you can return the bill to an editable state and ensure it goes through the right approval process.

It is important to be cautious when handling approvals, especially since administrators can still pay unapproved bills. Moreover, being an audit and accounting software, Bill.com keeps a clear record of who made changes and when, maintaining accountability throughout the billing process.

By understanding and properly using the unapproval process, you can maintain flexibility and accuracy in your billing workflows.