Best Invoice Approval Software: Revenue 365

October 9, 2025

6 min read

Every invoice reflects a transaction, yet not every process handles it efficiently.

But while firms are smart about currency strategy, many still use outdated methods for handling invoices. That’s where the challenges begins.

The average time to process one invoice manually is 14.6 days, and nearly half of global respondents (49%) spend more than five days each month just processing invoices.

This lost time translates into delayed payments, poor vendor relationships, and weak cash flow visibility.

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Quick Read

Summary generated by AI, reviewed for accuracy.

Invoice approval software is a tool that helps businesses manage and approve bills from suppliers quickly and accurately. It reduces manual errors, speeds up payment processes, and keeps all invoice records organized in one place. With features like automated workflows, real-time tracking, secure approvals and companies can save time.

The solution lies in moving from slow, paper-based approvals to an electronic invoice approval software. That’s what invoice approval software offers, a simple, clear, and faster way to manage financial approvals.

How Does Invoice Approval Software Work?

Invoice approval software automates the process of routing, reviewing, and approving invoices for faster, error-free payments. Here’s how it works step-by-step.

Invoice Creation or Upload
Users can create an invoice directly inside the software or upload one received from a vendor. The system reads all details like amount, due date, and vendor name.
Automatic Routing:
Based on your rules, the invoice is automatically sent to the right approvers. For example, department head → finance head → director.
Real-Time Review
Approvers can review the invoice, leave comments, request changes, or approve it instantly from any device.
Data Storage and Reporting
Every invoice and approval record is saved in the system for easy access, audit, and reporting.

It’s like having an always-available system that never forgets deadlines or loses paperwork.

Challenges Faced During Manual Process

Despite advancements, many businesses continue to depend on manual invoice handling. This slows down approvals, increases errors, and blocks efficiency. Let’s look deeper at the major challenges.

Delayed Approvals
Paper-based invoices move from desk to desk. If one person is unavailable, the whole process stops. This delay increases payment cycles and causes frustration among vendors.
Since the average manual invoice processing time is 14.6 days, businesses lose valuable time that could be spent on strategic work.

High Administrative Load
37% of businesses still manage invoices on paper, requiring printing, filing, and physical storage. This increases costs and workload for finance staff. Searching for an old invoice can take hours, affecting productivity.

Slow Processing and Human Errors
When invoices are manually entered, errors are inevitable wrong numbers, duplicate entries, or missing signatures. Since 49% of global respondents spend over five days monthly just processing invoices, even a small mistake can affect budgets, taxes, or vendor trust.

Lack of Visibility
Manual systems offer no clear view of pending or completed invoices. Finance heads must ask around or check multiple files to track payment status, which wastes time and effort.

Difficulty During Audits
During audits, manual teams struggle to locate old invoices or approval trails. Missing data can raise compliance issues and stress during review periods.

Key Features of Invoice Approval Workflow Software

A great invoice approval software is more than just digital paperwork it’s a full control centre for your financial operations. Let’s explore the key features that make it powerful and how each feature benefits your business.

Invoice Approval
At the heart of every organization’s financial operations, the invoice approval workflow software enables digital submission, review, and approval of invoices with complete transparency.
Approvers can access invoices instantly from anywhere, eliminating delays caused by physical signatures or paper copies.
This accelerates decision-making, ensures accountability through timestamped records, and maintains a smooth, consistent payment cycle.

Centralized Dashboard
A centralized, intuitive dashboard provides instant visibility into all invoices pending, approved, or completed.
Finance and management teams can effortlessly monitor the entire subscription lifecycle in one place, eliminating the need for tedious emails or spreadsheets.
With real-time insights, challenge are easily spotted, approvals are accelerated, and overall operational efficiency is significantly enhanced.

Custom Invoice
The invoice approval software allows users to design custom invoices with branded logos, colour themes, and fields for tax and currency details.
Standardized, professional invoices reduce errors and confusion across departments and vendors. For companies dealing with international partners, this ensures compliance with required invoice formats and currency specifications.
This also enhances brand credibility and strengthens professional communication with clients and vendors.

Proforma Invoice
With proforma invoice capabilities, users can generate preliminary invoices showing estimated costs before a final sale.
This feature is ideal for export businesses or pre-order scenarios, helping set clear expectations and reducing disputes.
Clients receive transparent estimates, which accelerates negotiations and billing. It also enhances trust with clients by providing clarity and professionalism from the very first interaction.

Real-Time Collaboration
The invoice approval software enables real-time collaboration across departments and locations. Multiple users can review, comment, and manage invoices simultaneously, dramatically reducing approval cycles.
This feature empowers hybrid and remote teams to coordinate seamlessly, accelerate workflows, and achieve faster, more efficient financial operations.
It also fosters accountability and transparency, as every action is tracked and recorded in real time.
Advanced Reporting
Leverage analytics feature to gain actionable insights from invoice data, such as approval times, average payment duration, and vendor trends.
Advanced reporting empowers managers to detect delays, evaluate vendor performance, and optimize budgets.
These insights drive smarter financial planning and continuous process improvements.
Integration Capabilities
The invoice approval workflow software integrates seamlessly with SharePoint, MS Teams, Outlook, Power BI and Power Automate.
By eliminating manual data entry across systems, integration saves time, reduces errors, and ensures consistent financial records.
It also provides a single source of truth, enhancing audit readiness and decision-making efficiency.

Secure and Scalable
Built-in encryption, access controls, and secure backups protect sensitive financial data. The system can handle thousands of invoices without compromising performance, and access permissions ensure only authorized personnel can view or approve documents.

As your business grows, the invoice approval workflow software scales effortlessly to manage increasing invoice volumes securely.

Benefits of Invoice Approval Software

The benefits of using invoice approval software go far beyond saving time. It transforms how finance teams operate and adds value to the entire organization. Here are some important benefits to consider.

1) Accurate Invoice to Clients

Invoices are prepared with full accuracy, including the correct amounts, dates, client details, and descriptions of products or services. Every client receives an invoice that matches the work or goods provided.

This accuracy builds trust, keeps financial records organized, and makes it easy to track payments.

Businesses can also quickly identify completed work and transactions, making accounting simpler and more reliable.

2) Cost Savings

Using invoice approval software can lead to significant cost savings. By keeping records organized and reducing delays, businesses can avoid unnecessary spending.

Staff can spend less time manually checking and sending invoices, and more time on important tasks that drive growth.

Overall, resources such as time, effort, and money are used more effectively, which helps businesses operate more efficiently.

3) Personalized Invoice

Invoices can be designed to reflect the company’s brand, including logos, colours, and client-specific details. Personalization makes every invoice unique, professional, and easy to recognize.

Clients are more likely to remember a business that sends clear, professional, and customized invoices.

This small touch can create a positive impression and strengthen client relationships.

4) Easier Workflow

With invoice automation, the process of creating, approving, and sending invoices becomes simple and highly efficient.

Automation in invoicing system reduces mistakes significantly manual processes often have a 2% error rate annually, while automated systems bring it down to just 0.8%. Teams can follow a clear, organized process, completing tasks faster and with less effort.

Everyone knows exactly what to do at each step, making collaboration smooth and consistent. This saves time and effort, allowing businesses to focus on growth and building stronger client and vendor relationships.

5) Improved Accuracy

All information in invoices, including numbers, dates, client details, and service descriptions, is precise and reliable. Accurate invoices reduce mistakes, keep financial records clear, and make it easy to reconcile accounts.

This ensures that businesses have trustworthy documentation for every transaction, simplifying reporting and bookkeeping tasks.

It also builds confidence among clients and vendors, showing professionalism in every financial interaction.

6) Strong Vendor Relationships

Vendors receive invoices and contract details that are clear, accurate, and delivered on time. This strengthens professional relationships with suppliers and partners by keeping all agreements transparent and easy to follow.

Prompt and correct invoices, along with well-managed vendor contract information, make communication simpler and support smooth collaboration.

Businesses benefit from reliable partnerships, which can lead to better deals, faster deliveries, and stronger long-term connections.

7) Audit Log

Every action taken on invoices, such as approvals, edits, or submissions, is recorded in a detailed history. This makes it simple to track who did what and when.

Audit logs provide transparency and easy access to past activity, making it simple to review records at any time.

This organized history supports better decision-making and helps in keeping accurate financial documentation.

8) Compliance Management

Invoices follow all required rules and regulations, keeping the business aligned with financial and legal standards. Compliance helps maintain proper documentation and supports responsible financial practices.

Businesses can confidently manage invoices knowing that records meet official standards, which is important for audits, reporting, and overall financial organization.

This also enhances the company’s reputation by showing reliability and professionalism in all financial dealings.

Steps to Consider Before Implementing Invoice Approval Workflow Software

Before choosing any invoice approval software, take time to evaluate your needs carefully. The right foundation ensures long-term success.

1. Define Your Workflow

Before choosing invoice approval software, it’s important to know how your approvals work. Different invoices may need different numbers of approvals depending on their size or type.

List all types of invoices your company receives and note who should approve each one.
Decide how many people need to approve small, medium, or large invoices.
Write down your approval steps so the software can follow them correctly.

2. Integration Check

Your invoice approval workflow software should be able to work with your system. This integration with existing office suite saves time and avoids mistakes from entering data more than once.

Make a list of all software your company uses for accounting and management.
Ask if the invoice software can connect directly with these systems.
Check if data like invoice amounts, vendor names, and payment dates automatically move between the systems.

3. Security Standards

Keeping financial data safe is very important. You should know how the software protects your information and who can access it.

Ask what type of encryption the software uses to protect data.
Check if there are backup policies to keep your data safe in case of problems.
Make a list of who can see, edit, or approve invoices and set permissions in the system.

4. Scalability

The business may grow over time, and your software should be able to grow with it. It should handle more invoices or users without slowing down.

Ask how many invoices the software can handle each month.
Check if you can add more users as your team grows.
See if the software can manage new departments or locations if your business expands.

5. Ease of Use

The invoice approval software makes work easier for everyone, even those who are not tech experts. A clear and simple interface helps your team complete tasks faster, spend less time figuring out the system, and focus more on important work.

Users can quickly approve or send invoices without needing long instructions.
A simple design helps your team complete tasks accurately and efficiently.
Everyone can get productive right away, saving time and keeping the workflow smooth.

6. Training and Support

Good training and support help your team get used to the software faster. It also helps if there are problems later.

Ask if the software provider gives step-by-step guides or tutorials.
Check if there is live support available through chat, email, or phone.
Schedule a demo or training session for your team before starting full use.

7. Customization Options

Every company works a little differently. Your software should allow you to adjust settings to match your exact approval process.

List any special approval steps or templates your company uses.
Check if the software lets you change approval workflows or create custom templates.
Test if you can add or remove fields on invoices to fit your needs.

How Revenue 365 Helps During Invoice Approval Workflow?

Revenue 365 simplifies invoice approval by combining technology, clarity, and control in one platform.

Smart Approval Routing: Set up invoice approval workflows so the right people authorize invoices before they are sent to clients. This saves time, reduces mistakes, and keeps payments accurate and on schedule.
Live Dashboard: Monitor the status of all invoices pending, approved, or paid in one clear view. Invoice approval workflow software helps your team stay organized and quickly spot any invoices that need attention.
Custom Template Options: Create invoices that match your brand identity and currency preferences. Professional-looking invoices strengthen your brand image and make a positive impression on clients.
Collaborative Workflows: Finance and procurement teams can discuss and approve invoices instantly within the system. This improves teamwork, speeds up approvals, and avoids delays.
Easy Integrations: Connect the software with MS 365 apps and other tools your company uses. This keeps your data consistent, reduces manual work, and saves valuable time.
High Security: Advanced encryption and access controls keep your financial data safe. Users can control who sees or edits invoices, protecting sensitive information.
Insightful Reports: Access detailed analytics on approval times, vendor spending, and challenges. This helps your team make smarter decisions and improve overall efficiency.

With Revenue 365, your finance team gains control, clarity, and confidence in every transaction helping your business stay efficient and financially healthy.

Conclusion

Every decision in business, from choosing the currency you invoice in to how quickly invoices are approved, directly impacts your revenue and overall efficiency. With the right invoice approval software, you can save time, reduce delays, and make your financial processes smarter.

Start improving your invoice workflow today with Revenue 365 and see the difference for yourself. Sign up now for a 14-day free trial and experience faster approvals, better visibility, and smoother financial management.