Almost every invoice approval process flowchart shows the same five boxes in a line, and almost every real process spends most of its effort somewhere those five boxes do not appear. A flowchart that shows only the clean path is a diagram of the minority case. The useful version has the same spine and four branches hanging off it, each with a name against it.
The spine
Invoice received. Supplier and invoice number checked against what you already hold. Matched against the purchase order and the goods receipt. Routed for approval by cost centre and value. Approved, coded and scheduled for payment. Remittance sent. Five decisions, and in a healthy process most invoices take exactly this route without anybody thinking about them.
The four branches
No purchase order, so nothing to match: route to whoever owns the spend for a fuller approval. Price outside tolerance: route to purchasing. Quantity outside tolerance or no receipt: route to whoever takes deliveries. Query or suspected duplicate: route to a named owner with the supplier contact. Each branch needs a name and an age, or it becomes a pile.
What the chart should say about time
Put a target elapsed time on each branch and measure against it. A flowchart without time is a description; with time it is a control. It also makes the argument for change concrete: a branch that consistently takes three weeks is a specific problem with a specific owner rather than a general complaint about the process.
Questions people ask about invoice approval process flowchart
Should the flowchart include payment?
Include it as an endpoint so the chart covers the whole path, but payment scheduling usually deserves its own diagram since it is driven by terms and cash rather than by approval.
How do we show recurring invoices?
As a separate short path where the arrangement was approved once and the invoice is matched against it. Treating them like one-off invoices creates pointless approval work.
Who should own the chart?
Whoever owns the payables control, reviewed with the people doing the work. A chart that only management recognises describes an aspiration.