Journal Entry Approval Workflow

A practical guide to enabling and using BizBooks Pro's built-in journal entry review system — from initial setup through day-to-day approval, rejection, and audit export.

Overview

BizBooks Pro's Journal Entry Approval Workflow prevents entries from being posted to your books without a designated second reviewer signing off. Once enabled, a bookkeeper or staff accountant creates the entry, adds supporting notes, and sends it to a manager or partner for review. Nothing posts to account balances until the reviewer approves.

Key benefits of enabling this feature:

• Error prevention — a second reviewer catches transposed accounts, wrong amounts, and misclassified expenses before they affect your financial statements
• Separation of duties — the person who records a transaction is not the same person who authorizes it, satisfying a core requirement of sound internal controls
• Auditor-ready documentation — every approval, rejection, and override is recorded permanently with the user's name, the date, and written comments
• SOX and GAAP alignment — the workflow satisfies the journal entry review controls examined by auditors under AU-C Section 240 and PCAOB AS 2301

Entry Status Lifecycle

Journal entries in BizBooks Pro move through the following statuses as they progress from creation to posting:

Sending an Entry for Review

Follow these steps to create a journal entry and send it through the approval process:

1. Go to Journal Entries from the main navigation menu.
2. Click New Journal Entry to open the entry form.
3. Enter the accounting date and all debit and credit lines. BizBooks Pro confirms the entry is balanced before allowing submission.
4. Fill in the Description field — this appears in the approval queue and helps the reviewer identify the entry at a glance.
5. In the Note to Reviewer field, briefly explain the purpose, what it corrects, or what supporting documentation backs it up. This is optional but strongly recommended.
6. Click Save as Draft if you need to return to it later, or click Submit for Approval to send it immediately.

Once submitted, the entry moves to Pending Approval status. You will see it listed as pending in your journal entries view. The reviewer is notified automatically. You cannot make further changes until the reviewer acts on the entry or you withdraw it.

Pulling Back a Submission

If you realize a mistake before the reviewer has acted, you can cancel the submission:

1. Locate the entry in your Pending Approval list.
2. Click Withdraw.
3. The entry reverts to Draft status and disappears from the approval queue.
4. Edit and resubmit when you are ready.

Working the Approval Queue

Users assigned the Manager, Partner, or Admin role — depending on your company's configuration — have access to the Approval Queue. To access it:

1. Navigate to Journal Entries.
2. Click the Approval Queue tab at the top of the journal entries list.

The queue displays all entries currently awaiting your review, sorted by submission date with the oldest at the top. Each row shows the entry date, preparer name, description, total amount, and the preparer's note if one was provided.

Filtering the Queue

Use the filter controls above the queue to narrow down what you are looking at:

• By Preparer — See only entries submitted by a specific team member
• By Date Range — Focus on entries with accounting dates in a specific period
• By Amount — Find entries above or below a dollar threshold

Approving and Rejecting Entries

Approving an Entry

1. Click an entry in the Approval Queue to open the full detail view.
2. Review every line: account codes, debit and credit amounts, description, and the preparer's note.
3. If the entry looks correct, click Approve.
4. Add an optional approval comment if you want to note anything for the record.
5. Click Confirm. The entry posts immediately to the ledger.

Once posted, the entry appears in the general ledger, affects account balances, and is visible in all financial reports including the income statement and balance sheet.

Rejecting an Entry

1. Open the entry from the Approval Queue.
2. Click Reject.
3. Type your rejection reason in the comment box. This is a required field — BizBooks Pro will not process the rejection without a written explanation.
4. Click Confirm Rejection.

The entry status returns to Draft. The preparer is notified and can read your comment directly on the entry. They can make the necessary corrections and resubmit. The original submission, your rejection, and your comment are all saved permanently in the entry's history regardless of what happens next.

Approval History & Audit Trail

Every action taken on a journal entry — creation, submission, approval, rejection, resubmission, and posting — is recorded in the entry's approval history. This log is permanent, tamper-proof, and available to any user with read access to the entry.

Viewing an Entry's History

Open any journal entry and click the History tab. You will see a chronological log of every status change with the following detail for each event:

Exporting Approval Records

To produce an approval history export for your accountant, auditor, or internal review:

1. Go to Journal Entries and set your date range filter.
2. Click Export and choose Include Approval History.
3. Select CSV or PDF format.
4. BizBooks Pro generates a file listing every entry in the period along with its preparer, reviewer, all dates, and all comment text.

Setup & Configuration

To configure journal entry approval for a company, go to Settings > Accounting Controls > Journal Entry Approval.

Turning Approval On or Off

Toggle Require Approval Before Posting to enable or disable the workflow for the active company. When turned on, all entry submissions from roles that require approval will route to the queue. When turned off, users with posting rights can post entries directly.

Configuring Which Roles Require Approval

After enabling the workflow, select which roles must have their entries approved before posting. The default configuration is:

You can change the defaults for any role in Settings. For example, if you want accountants to also require approval, toggle that option on. If you want senior accountants to serve as approvers, enable that option for the Accountant role.

Admin Override

Admin-level users can post any entry without approval by clicking Post Without Approval on the entry detail view. BizBooks Pro requires the admin to enter a reason before the override is applied. The override event, the admin's identity, and the reason are written to the entry's audit trail. Overrides appear in the audit export with a distinct label so auditors can identify and examine them separately.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can a bookkeeper see who rejected their entry and why?

Yes. The rejection comment and the name of the reviewer are visible to the preparer on the entry detail page as soon as the rejection is processed. The preparer does not need to ask anyone — the feedback is attached directly to the entry they need to correct.

What if an entry needs to be corrected after it has already been posted?

Posted entries cannot be edited directly, consistent with standard double-entry accounting controls. To correct a posted entry, create a reversing journal entry that offsets the original, then create a new entry with the correct amounts. Both the reversing entry and the corrected entry go through the approval workflow just like any other new entry.

Does enabling approval affect entries that were already posted?

No. Enabling the approval workflow applies only to new entries created after the setting is turned on. All previously posted entries remain as-is. Existing Draft entries will require approval before they can be posted once the setting is enabled.

What tier of BizBooks Pro is needed to use this feature?

Journal Entry Approval is included in the Professional plan and above. If you are on the Starter plan and want to upgrade, go to Settings > License & Billing to view upgrade options.

Is there a way to notify a specific approver rather than the whole group?

Currently, notifications are sent to all users in the company who have the approver role. Targeted notification to a single named approver is on the product roadmap. For now, the convention used by most teams is to leave a preparer note mentioning the name of the intended reviewer, which they will see when they open the queue.