ApproveThis manages your Recurly Integration approvals.

Why Your Subscription Business Needs This Combo

Let’s cut to the chase: manual billing approvals suck. They’re the spreadsheet hell that delays revenue, creates compliance blindspots, and makes finance teams want to rage-quit during quarterly closes. Recurly handles the heavy lifting of subscription billing, but when you need human decisions – price overrides, custom contract terms, enterprise deal approvals – things get messy fast.

ApproveThis is the missing layer. It’s where your team actually decides on exceptions, upgrades, or custom deals, then automatically pushes those decisions into Recurly. No more “Who approved this discount?” email chains. No more missed approvals causing billing errors. Just clean handoffs between the people who say “yes” and the systems that make it happen.

Three Ways This Integration Kills Bottlenecks

1. When Finance Says “Yes”, Recurly Knows Instantly

The Problem: Your sales team closes a big annual contract with a custom payment schedule. Finance approves it... and then someone has to manually rebuild the whole thing in Recurly. Errors creep in, start dates get misaligned, and the customer gets invoiced wrong.

The Fix: Connect ApproveThis’ “Request Approved” trigger to Recurly’s “Update Account” action via Zapier. Now, when sales submits the deal terms for approval and finance greenlights it, all the custom details (discounts, billing cycles, service tiers) auto-populate in Recurly. No rekeying. No “version 6” of the contract floating around Slack.

Who This Helps: SaaS companies with enterprise sales teams. Media companies offering tiered content access. Any business where customized subscriptions are the norm, not the exception.

2. New Subscriptions Get Scrutinized Before They Go Live

The Problem: Your CS team spots a surge in high-risk signups – maybe free trials with no credit card, or bulk purchases from new regions. By the time fraud checks happen, the subscriptions are active, and clawing back revenue is a nightmare.

The Fix: Use Recurly’s “New Subscription” trigger to kick off an approval workflow in ApproveThis. High-risk signups get paused until fraud review, credit checks, or manager sign-off happens. Approved? The subscription activates automatically. Denied? It’s terminated before any damage.

Who This Helps: E-learning platforms with expensive course subscriptions. B2B tools where each account has multiple seats. Companies in regulated industries needing extra compliance checks.

3. Customer Success Doesn’t Beg for Account Updates

The Problem: A customer requests a billing address change, upgrade, or payment plan extension. Your team approves it, but Recurly isn’t updated. Invoices go to the wrong place, service tiers don’t unlock, and suddenly you’re in damage control mode.

The Fix: ApproveThis becomes the hub for all customer-requested changes. CS submits a request, approvals happen via email (even for external clients), and once resolved, Recurly’s API updates automatically. No more “I thought you handled it” gaps between teams.

Who This Helps: Subscription box companies with frequent shipping changes. Membership sites prorating upgrades. Any business where customers self-manage their accounts.

Setting This Up Won’t Make You Hate Tech

If you’ve ever suffered through an ERP integration, breathe easy. This is Zapier, not a PhD project:

1. Connect the Pipes: In Zapier, link ApproveThis and Recurly (takes 2 minutes, no coding).
2. Pick Your Trigger: Like “New Recurly Subscription” or “Approval Decision Made”.
3. Map the Data: Tell Zapier which ApproveThis fields correspond to Recurly’s (discount % → plan rate, etc.).
4. Test With Live Data: Zapier’s debug tool catches mismatches before anything breaks.

Pro Tip: Start with one workflow (like deal approvals), nail it, then expand. Your team will actually use a system that doesn’t require 3 days of training.

Why This Isn’t Just for Finance Nerds

Sales Teams: Stop losing deals because legal takes weeks to approve custom terms. Structured workflows in ApproveThis mean enforceable SLAs on contract reviews.

Customer Success: Ever had a client scream because an approved refund didn’t process? Automatic Recurly updates post-approval mean what you promise is what happens.

Execs: Real-time dashboards in ApproveThis show approval bottlenecks killing cash flow. Fix them before the board asks awkward questions.

The Hidden Perks You’ll Actually Care About

ApproveThis isn’t just a middleman. Features that matter when scaling:

• “Set It & Forget It” Approvals: Auto-approve discounts under 10% for reps, but require VP sign-off above. Recurly enforces it without you playing enforcer.
• Approval Chains That Don’t Die: If your CFO’s on vacation, requests auto-reassign. No more “Waiting on Jane” delays holding up launches.
• Audit Trails That Don’t Lie: Every Recurly change ties back to an ApproveThis log – who approved what, when, and why. SOX compliance without the ulcer.

Bottom Line: This Isn’t About Software

It’s about closing the gap between “We decided” and “It’s done.” Recurly handles the billing mechanics. ApproveThis handles the human decisions. Together, they make sure one doesn’t screw up the other.

If your subscription revenue is growing (or you need it to), patching this leak should be priority #1. Register for ApproveThis, connect the dots in Zapier, and stop letting approval chaos eat into your margins.