ApprovalMax has launched Approval Intelligence, an AI layer that shows approvers supplier history and anomalies before they approve bills.
ApprovalMax, an approval automation software provider for finance teams, has launched Approval Intelligence, an artificial intelligence (AI) layer designed to give approvers more context when reviewing supplier bills. Available to customers using Xero and QuickBooks Online, the product introduces the Approval Agent, which compares incoming bills with an organisation’s previous transactions with the same supplier. It identifies unusual changes in amounts, billing frequency, account coding, and currency, presenting the findings when a bill is ready for approval.
Closing the information gap in approvals
Dan Schonfeld, Chief Financial Officer at ApprovalMax, stated that approvers rarely lack the authority to reject a bill, but often lack the information needed to do so, as it sits in another system. According to Schonfeld, people check thoroughly when they have time and rely on memory when they do not, and this gap widens each time a team member leaves. The Approval Agent is intended to address this by bringing supplier history directly into the approval step.
The agent cannot approve, reject, or change a bill, a limit ApprovalMax says it set deliberately at an early stage. Schonfeld stated that much of what is currently offered in accounts payable comes down to fewer people being involved and more of the process running without oversight. He noted, however, that when an incorrect payment is made, the person who approved it remains accountable, and that this responsibility cannot be automated. For this reason, the company defined the agent’s limits before development began: it would never approve anything and would never raise a flag it could not explain.
Customer input and future agents
These limits reflect feedback from ApprovalMax’s customers, who were consistent on two points during consultation. AI could inform an approval but should never be recorded as having made one, and a flag without visible reasoning would not be trusted. The approach aligns with the role of ApprovalMax’s software in enforcing delegation of authority and recording a timestamped audit trail of every approval decision.
The Approval Agent is the first of several agents planned under Approval Intelligence. According to ApprovalMax, the underlying principle will remain unchanged as further agents are added: the software will improve at showing approvers what matters without moving closer to making decisions on their behalf. Founded in 2014, ApprovalMax provides approval automation for accounts payable and accounts receivable to more than 20,000 organisations working in Xero, QuickBooks Online, and Oracle NetSuite. The launch positions the company’s AI features as decision support for approvers, in contrast to the more autonomous accounts payable automation that Schonfeld describes as prevalent in the market.
