What to Do When an Approver Says an Invoice Is Not Theirs

1. Confirm the claim: check whether the approver is genuinely not responsible. 2. Diagnose the cause: review the coding and routing rule that placed it there. 3. Identify the right approver: use the coding, entity, and authority matrix. 4. Reassign with context: route to the correct approver with a note explaining why. 5. Preserve duties: keep segregation of duties intact in the reassignment. 6. Record it: capture the reassignment and reason in the audit trail. 7. Prevent recurrence: correct the routing rule or coding if the mis-route repeats.

Before reassigning, understand why the invoice reached this approver. Approval routing usually follows the coding, such as the department, entity, or cost center, and the authority matrix. A mis-route often means the coding pointed to the wrong owner or the routing rule is out of date.

Sometimes the approver is correct but does not recognize the charge, which is a different problem than mis-routing. In that case the answer is more context, not reassignment, so the reviewer confirms whether the issue is the wrong approver or an approver who needs the business reason explained.

Once the cause is clear, the correct approver is identified from the coding and the authority matrix, meaning the person with the right approval level for that department, entity, and amount. Reassignment should keep segregation of duties intact, so the invoice does not land with someone who entered or will pay it.

The reassignment should carry context. A note explaining why the invoice moved and what it is for helps the new approver act without restarting the diagnosis, and it keeps the handoff transparent.

A reassignment changes who is responsible for an approval, which is exactly the kind of event an audit trail exists to capture. The record should show who originally held the invoice, who it moved to, when, and why.

Reassigning an invoice without a record makes the approval history misleading, because it looks as though the final approver was the intended one all along. Capturing the change keeps the approval chain honest.

A single mis-route is a reassignment. A pattern of the same mis-routes is a configuration problem. When invoices for a given vendor, department, or entity keep reaching the wrong approver, the fix is the routing rule or the coding behind them.

Correcting the cause, such as updating the authority matrix, the default coding, or the routing logic, stops the recurrence. Reassigning the same invoices by hand each period treats the symptom and leaves the cause in place.

Stampli predicts the appropriate approver as part of the AP workflow, using coding and prior behavior, while keeping human review in control. When an invoice reaches the wrong person, it can be reassigned to the correct approver inside the same workflow, with comments kept on the invoice so the handoff carries context.

Because Stampli learns from corrections, repeated reassignments inform future routing, which helps reduce the same mis-routes over time. Approval workflows are configurable, so routing rules can be adjusted to match how authority actually works across departments and entities.

Every action is captured in an immutable audit trail with full context. A reassignment shows who held the invoice, who it moved to, and when, alongside the document and comments, so the approval chain stays clear for audit. Segregation of duties is enforced by design.