ApproveThis manages your Smarty Accounting Integration approvals.

Why This Integration Matters

When Smarty Accounting's detailed financial tracking meets ApproveThis' structured approval workflows, businesses gain an operational advantage that goes beyond basic automation. This integration creates a closed-loop system where financial decisions happen faster, stakeholders stay informed, and compliance becomes inherent to the process - not an afterthought.

Smarty Accounting excels at managing bills, invoices, and estimates with precision. ApproveThis adds governance to these transactions through customizable approval chains. Together, they solve a critical challenge: maintaining financial control without slowing down operations. Department heads get real-time visibility into pending requests, while approvers can make decisions directly from their email inbox without needing full access to accounting software.

Core Benefits Across Industries

Construction firms use this integration to validate contractor invoices against project budgets before payment. Marketing agencies automate client estimate approvals to prevent scope creep. Nonprofits ensure donor-funded expenses align with grant requirements through multi-layer reviews.

Key Operational Improvements

Error Reduction: Automated data passing between systems eliminates manual entry mistakes in bill payments or client quotes. Approval thresholds in ApproveThis automatically flag expenses exceeding budget limits.

Audit Readiness: Every approved/denied action in ApproveThis timestamps associated Smarty Accounting records, creating an immutable decision trail for compliance reviews.

Cash Flow Management: Auto-escalation features ensure overdue approvals don't delay payments to vendors or invoicing to clients.

Real-World Use Cases

1. Bill Approval Automation

When Smarty Accounting detects a new bill from a vendor, ApproveThis triggers a customized approval chain. The AP team receives an email with bill details and approval options. If the amount exceeds $5,000, it routes to the CFO automatically. Approved bills sync back to Smarty for payment scheduling.

Impact: A manufacturing company reduced invoice processing time from 14 days to 72 hours using this workflow, avoiding late payment penalties.

2. Client Estimate Validation

Sales teams creating proposals in Smarty Accounting can trigger approval requests that factor in production capacity. ApproveThis uses calculated fields to compare estimate timelines against resource availability data pulled from other systems.

Impact: An IT services provider eliminated 92% of overcommitment errors by adding engineering team approvals to client quotes.

3. Vendor Onboarding Syncing

When new vendors are approved in ApproveThis, the integration automatically creates Smarty Accounting contacts with proper tax classifications and payment terms. This eliminates duplicate data entry across procurement and finance teams.

Impact: A restaurant chain cut new supplier setup time from 3 days to 2 hours while ensuring 100% compliance with vendor certification requirements.

Implementation Essentials

Setting up the integration through Zapier takes under 30 minutes:

1. Connect Smarty Accounting and ApproveThis to your Zapier account
2. Choose trigger events like "New Bill" or "New Estimate"
3. Map critical data fields between systems (amounts, dates, requester info)
4. Configure approval rules in ApproveThis (thresholds, approver groups)
5. Test with sample transactions before full rollout

Pro Tip: Use ApproveThis' calculated fields to add automatic currency conversions for international vendors or markup calculations for client estimates.

Team-Specific Advantages

Finance Teams

Controllers gain real-time visibility into outstanding approvals affecting cash flow projections. Automated reminders reduce follow-up emails by 60-75% according to early adopters.

Operations Managers

Vacation delegation in ApproveThis prevents approval bottlenecks when team members are OOO. Sequential routing ensures proper hierarchy adherence for capital expenditure requests.

External Partners

Vendors and clients can approve estimates or invoices through email without needing Smarty Accounting logins. Approval status updates automatically in both systems.

Advanced Configuration Options

Combine ApproveThis' conditional logic with Smarty Accounting's custom fields to create dynamic approval paths. For example:

• Route all marketing expenses over $2K to both the CMO and CFO
• Auto-approve office supply orders under $500
• Flag invoices from non-preferred vendors for additional scrutiny

The integration supports bi-directional updates - when an estimate is modified after approval, ApproveThis can trigger a re-approval workflow automatically.

Overcoming Common Challenges

Some teams initially worry about losing visibility when moving from manual approvals. ApproveThis' dashboard provides clearer tracking than email chains, with filters by date, amount, or department. Others express concern about approver overload - smart routing rules and escalation paths actually reduce approval request volume by 40% on average.

For complex approvals involving multiple systems, use Zapier to pull data from inventory management or project tools into approval requests. This gives approvers full context without switching platforms.

Getting Started

Begin with high-impact, repetitive approval processes like vendor payments or client project authorizations. Measure time savings and error reduction during the pilot phase. Expand to more complex workflows once teams adapt to the new process.

Approval automation works best when paired with proper training. Use ApproveThis' audit logs to identify bottlenecks and refine approval chains quarterly. Most organizations see full ROI within 90-120 days through reduced processing costs and improved financial controls.

Start your free ApproveThis trial or explore Smarty Accounting's features to see how this integration can transform your financial operations.

Final Considerations

While the technical setup is straightforward, success depends on aligning the integration with your actual approval needs. Document current pain points in your financial processes before configuring workflows. Involve approvers in design sessions to ensure the system reflects real-world decision-making patterns.

Remember: The goal isn't just faster approvals, but better decisions. Use the data generated by this integration to identify spending trends, improve forecasting accuracy, and optimize vendor relationships. With ApproveThis and Smarty Accounting working together through Zapier, financial governance becomes a strategic asset rather than an operational burden.