The invoice approval process is short: establish the invoice is yours, match it, route it to the right person, and record their decision. Three of those four take minutes. The third takes days, because it depends on somebody who does not work in finance, has other priorities, and receives the request as one more item in an inbox they are already behind on.
The three quick steps
Identity and duplicate checks against what you already hold. Matching against the purchase order and the goods receipt where they exist. Recording the decision with a name, a date and the amount approved. All three are mechanical, all three can be fast, and none of them is usually the reason an invoice is late.
The one slow step, and its three causes
Routing to the wrong person, routing to somebody who is away, and routing to a group where responsibility is shared and therefore nobody's. Named approvers, automatic cover during declared absence and escalation to a named alternative after a set period address all three. Together they usually halve elapsed time without changing any policy.
What approvers need to see
The invoice, the amount, the supplier, what it is for and whether it matched. An approver shown a reference and a total is confirming a number rather than authorising an expenditure, and they know it, which is why approvals given on thin information are given quickly and mean little. Showing the document is what keeps the control real.
Questions people ask about invoice approval process
How long should approval take?
Set a target, measure the distribution and look at the tail. The average is comfortable and hides the invoices that generate the supplier calls.
Should matched invoices need approval?
Many organisations treat a clean match within tolerance as sufficient, since approval already happened at the order. Make it a written policy.
What about invoices with no purchase order?
They need a fuller approval by whoever owns the spend, and they should be routed differently so you can see how many there are.