What are payment approvals?

Payment approvals are any payments that are routed to the account administrator for approval before being sent to the payee.¹

Who can send payments for approval? 

Any authorized user added to your account can send payments for approval if you’ve indicated to “Require approval for all payments sent by this user” when you invite them.² Additionally, you can edit a previously added authorized user’s payment approval permissions by navigating to the Settings Icon in the upper right-hand corner of your dashboard and then selecting the Account Access tab. Any accountants you’ve added will automatically have payments routed for your approval based on their permissions and cannot be edited to opt out of having payments sent for approval.

Note:  Default account permissions allow Authorized Users (AUs) to send payments without approval from the Administrator. If you'd prefer that AUs are required to send all payments for approval first, you must select the checkbox next to "Require approval for all payments sent by this user" when inviting the AU. For existing AUs, you can edit their payment approval permissions by navigating to the Settings Icon in the upper right-hand corner of your dashboard and then selecting the Account Access tab.

For more information on managing your additional users, check out this support article.

How do I approve payments?

Follow the steps below to approve, deny, or view payments that have been sent for your approval:

1. Sign in to your Bluevine dashboard
   • You’ll receive an email with the subject line “You have pending payments for review”. In this email you can hit Sign in to review and be routed to the payment approvals screen (step 3)
2. Select the bell icon located on the top right hand corner of your dashboard
   
   
3. Locate the ‘Pending approvals’ section and select View payments
   
   
4. Review the payments that are listed
   
   
5. Check the box next to payments you’d like to approve
   • You can view more details about a payment by selecting the three dots next to the payment and then clicking View
   • You can deny a payment by selecting the three dots next to the payment and click Deny
     • Your additional user will be notified via email that the payment has been denied. 
   • Any payments that will arrive past the due date will be flagged on the pending approval screen
6. Select Approve Payments once you’ve selected all you’d like to approve
   • If you didn’t select the checkbox next to a payment, no action will be taken once you select Approve Payments and it will remain in the ‘Pending approvals’ section
   • Recurring payments only need to be approved once 
7. If prompted, complete the Multi Factor Authentication (MFA) requirement
8. Click Done on the ‘Payments approved’ screen
   • If there are insufficient funds in your Bluevine account to cover an immediate payment, you’ll receive a pop up notifying you. Select Go back to unselect any payments.
   • If there is a payment you’d like to cancel after approving it, please contact us and we’ll be happy to look into it for you. For any payments scheduled for a future date, you can delete them by navigating to Payments on your dashboard

If a payment has been pending review for more than 60 days, it’ll automatically be canceled. An email will be sent to the administrator of the account and the sender of the payment (authorized user or accountant). 

How do I send payments for approval as an Authorized User or Accountant?

If you’re an Authorized User (with the “Require approval for all payments sent by this user” permission enabled) or an Accountant, any payments you send will be sent to your administrator for approval. This includes payments sent using the Send payment button and any bills through the Bills tab of your dashboard.You’ll receive an email confirmation that the payment(s) was sent for approval as well as when the administrator has approved or denied the payment(s).  

For information on sending payments visit our articles on ACH payments, wire payments, and Bill Pay

1: This feature is only available on the desktop version of the Bluevine Dashboard and not the Bluevine mobile app.

2: Customers are fully responsible for all activity and actions taken by any Additional User, as well as adherence to all terms and conditions. Bluevine and its partners are not responsible for any Additional User action or activity.