As your finance operations scale, so does the complexity of managing invoice approvals and vendor payments. If you’re handling 1000+ invoices per month or working with hundreds of vendors, relying solely on spreadsheets or email chains to track approvals can quickly lead to confusion, delays, and compliance risks. That’s where an Approval Matrix becomes essential. Our Approval Matrix Template is designed to bring clarity, speed, and accountability to your approvals process—so you can focus more on strategy and less on chasing down signatures.
What Is an Approval Matrix?
An Approval Matrix is a formalized document that outlines exactly who needs to approve which financial transactions, and under what conditions. It’s your single source of truth for approval workflows, enabling finance teams to:
- Identify the right approvers for every spend category
- Apply different thresholds based on invoice amounts
- Ensure segregation of duties and audit-readiness
Why Use This Approval Matrix Template?
If you’re processing high volumes of invoices and vendor payments each month, managing approvals through email or manual logs just won’t cut it.
Here’s how our template can help:
- Seamlessly streamline mundane approval cycles
- Use it as the foundation to automate approvals, data entry, and reconciliation, especially when paired with a smart AP platform like Peakflo.
- Documented workflows reduce back-and-forth and prevent costly approval delays.
What’s Inside the Template?
- A flexible, editable Excel matrix with pre-set fields
- Role-based approval tiers by invoice amount (e.g., < $10,000 = Finance Manager; > $100,000 = CFO)
- Suggested logic for POs, bills, contracts, and reimbursements
- Editable drop-downs for department, request type, and limits
Who Should Use This Template?
This template is a perfect fit for:
- Controllers building scalable AP processes
- Finance Managers who want to standardize internal controls
- Startup and mid-sized companies scaling past manual invoice management
- Procurement and operations leads managing cross-functional spend approvals
How to Use It
- Map your current approval flow to identify gaps
- Customize roles and thresholds based on spend limits and department
- Circulate to key stakeholders and align on responsibilities
- Use it to inform your AP automation platform setup for scalable approvals
Automate Approval Workflows with Peakflo
If you’re navigating through 1000+ invoices monthly and juggling vendor relationships, consider going beyond Excel.
Peakflo’s AI-powered AP automation integrates your approval matrix into dynamic workflows that:
- Auto-route approvals by logic and thresholds
- Capture audit trails for every approval decision
- Reduce manual bill data entry, approvals, and reconciliation effort
