The ConnectWise Invoice Approval Workflow, Explained

ConnectWise Manage handles pre-send approval through Invoice Routing — a queue that moves each draft invoice through a list of reviewers. This article covers how that native flow works, where it runs thin, and how Better Invoice builds on it.

You define an ordered list of reviewers, and each invoice walks that list one step at a time before it is billed. You manage the routing list on the Routing tab in Invoice Search, where you set the sequence of members an invoice passes through. Each reviewer acts on their assigned invoices from the My Invoices queue.

How the native ConnectWise invoice approval workflow works

To move an invoice through the native workflow:

1. In Invoice Search, go to the Routing tab.
2. Build your ordered list of reviewers.
3. Open the My Invoices queue to see invoices waiting on you.
4. Review the invoice, then select Route Forward to advance it to the next reviewer.
5. If something is wrong, select Route Backward to return it to the previous step for correction.
6. Once the final reviewer routes forward, select Finalize and send the invoice.

For the full mechanics, see the ConnectWise Routing tab and the My Invoices queue.

Where ConnectWise Invoice Routing falls short

Invoice Routing answers one question well: who has looked at this invoice. It moves the document between people and records that it advanced. What it doesn’t do is tell you whether the billing underneath is correct.

The gaps show up fast on a real billing run:

• No flagging of billing issues. Routing never inspects the line items. A below-cost product, an empty ticket note, or time logged two months ago all route forward as cleanly as a perfect invoice.
• Thin commenting. There is no durable place to leave context for the next reviewer, mention a colleague, or capture why an invoice went backward.
• Limited external sign-off. Routing lives entirely inside ConnectWise user accounts. A client contact or an outside manager can’t be looped in for approval.
• Scattered audit context. Routing history sits apart from the billing-status changes, the corrections, and the conversation, so reconstructing what happened means stitching several screens together.

Routing is a solid backbone for moving invoices. It was never built to review them.

How Better Invoice builds on Invoice Routing

Better Invoice treats Invoice Routing as the starting point, not a replacement. When it syncs an invoice, it reads that invoice’s existing ConnectWise routing list and seeds the same people as reviewers automatically — so the team you already route to carries over with no re-entry.

From there, each invoice gets a review record with three things native routing lacks: automatic checks that run before sign-off, structured approve and reject actions, and one timeline that captures everything.

Reviewers seeded from your routing list

The reviewer list on each invoice starts from ConnectWise Invoice Routing. Seeded reviewers are added once per invoice and marked as pending, then Better Invoice becomes the source of truth — so if you remove someone, a later sync won’t add them back.

You manage the list directly in the review pane:

1. In the Reviewers section, select + to add a member who isn’t already assigned.
2. Choose the member from the search list.
3. Point to a reviewer’s row and select the remove control.

Each reviewer row shows their status at a glance: Waiting for review, Approved, or Rejected, with a timestamp. See reviewers and approvals for the full assignment model.

Automatic checks before sign-off

Before anyone approves, Better Invoice runs a set of rules against the invoice and raises flags for anything that needs a human decision. Flags carry a severity — error, warning, or info — and appear in the Flags section of the review pane.

A few of the built-in checks:

• Low profit margin flags product lines below a margin threshold (default 20%), and escalates below-cost lines to errors.
• Ticket billed with no notes flags billable time with zero supporting notes.
• Stale time entries flags billable work older than a threshold (default 60 days) relative to the invoice date.
• Large expense flags expenses over a dollar threshold (default $500).
• Credit memo has a positive total flags a credit memo that charges instead of credits — an error.

Each flag links back to the exact product, ticket, or invoice in ConnectWise so a reviewer can verify it at the source. When a reviewer confirms a flag is acceptable, they mark it OK and it stays resolved across future syncs.

For the complete list of checks and their settings, see the review rules reference and how to configure review rules. To learn how flags drive the review, see understanding flags.

Structured approve, reject, and multi-sign-off

Where native routing offers forward and backward, Better Invoice offers explicit decisions. Each reviewer acts with a clear pair of buttons:

1. In the Invoice Status section, select Approve (or Approve & Close when yours is the final approval).
2. Select Reject to send the invoice back.
3. Select Undo Approval to return it to pending.

Approval is per reviewer, so an invoice needing two sign-offs waits for both. If you try to give the final approval while blocking flags are still open, Better Invoice shows an Approve with open flags? confirmation that lists the open errors and warnings — you can Cancel and resolve them, or select Approve anyway to proceed on the record.

Comments and mentions

Each invoice has a comment thread for the context that native routing can’t hold. Type @ to mention any active ConnectWise member; matching people surface in a popup as you type.

When your comment mentions someone, two options appear:

• Add mentioned members as reviewers assigns the people you mentioned to the invoice.
• Email mentioned people sends them an email notification with your comment.

Mentions are the bridge to people outside Better Invoice. A mentioned member who already has an account gets a direct link to the review; a member without one gets a guest share link instead.

Guest share links for external sign-off

When you mention a ConnectWise member who doesn’t have a Better Invoice account, the system generates a per-recipient share link for that invoice. The guest can open the invoice, download the PDF, and comment — no account required. Links last 90 days and extend each time the recipient is mentioned again.

A guest can also approve or reject, but only when they’re an assigned reviewer on the invoice. Every guest action is attributed to the underlying ConnectWise member and recorded in the audit trail. See share links and guest reviewers for the permission details.

A unified audit trail that writes back to ConnectWise

The Activity feed on each invoice is one chronological record that merges Better Invoice events with ConnectWise audit events. In a single timeline you see comments, approvals, rejections, undone approvals, reviewer changes, and status changes — alongside ConnectWise events such as billing-status updates, payments, credits, and emails pulled straight from the invoice’s audit history.

Because reviewers are seeded from Invoice Routing and the status reflects the ConnectWise billing status, the review record and ConnectWise stay aligned rather than drifting into separate systems of record. For the full event model, see activity and the audit trail.

Choosing your approval workflow

Native Invoice Routing is the right tool when your only need is to move an invoice past a second set of eyes. The moment “approval” means catching billing problems, looping in a client, or proving who signed off and why, routing alone leaves gaps.

Better Invoice fills those gaps without throwing away what works: it keeps your existing Invoice Routing list, adds the checks and sign-off that routing was never meant to provide, and records the whole thing in one place.

To see how the review layer fits together end to end, start with what invoice review is and the review inbox, or read how MSPs review invoices before sending. When you’re ready to put a checklist behind your sign-off, see the invoice QA checklist for MSPs. To turn it on for your team, head to Better Invoice review.

Frequently asked questions

How does invoice approval work in ConnectWise Manage?

ConnectWise Manage uses Invoice Routing. You build a routing list of reviewers, and each invoice moves through their My Invoices queue. Reviewers use Route Forward to advance an invoice or Route Backward to send it back for correction before it is billed.

What is ConnectWise Invoice Routing?

Invoice Routing is the native ConnectWise pre-send review feature. You manage it on the Routing tab in Invoice Search and act on assigned invoices from the My Invoices queue using Route Forward and Route Backward.

Can you flag billing issues before sending a ConnectWise invoice?

Native Invoice Routing routes invoices between people but does not inspect billing data. Better Invoice runs automatic checks before sign-off — low margins, missing notes, stale time, large expenses, and more — and surfaces them as flags on each invoice.

How do I send a ConnectWise invoice to a client for approval?

Invoice Routing keeps approval inside ConnectWise users. Better Invoice generates a per-recipient guest share link so a client contact or non-Better Invoice manager can view, comment, and sign off without an account.

Does Better Invoice write approval status back to ConnectWise?

Yes. Reviewers are seeded from the ConnectWise invoice routing list, and Better Invoice keeps a unified audit trail that records ConnectWise billing-status changes alongside its own approve, reject, and comment events.