Custom Approval Processes in Zoho Books

Zoho Books used to offer three approval options: none, simple (everything goes to one approver) or multi-level (everything goes up a chain). For a growing business that's a problem — you don't want the finance director approving every £20 purchase order, but you do want control over the big ones. The workaround was custom functions and validation rules. Custom approval processes now handle this without code.

Example 1: purchase orders over £1,000

1. Go to Settings → Purchase Orders → Approvals and choose Custom approval.
2. Create a rule, e.g. "PO over £1,000".
3. Set the criteria: Total is greater than 1,000.
4. Choose the action: send to a specific approver, auto-approve or auto-reject.
5. Save.

Now a £2,000 purchase order saved as a draft must be submitted for approval. Until it's approved, it can't be sent or converted to a bill. Anything under the threshold goes through as normal.

Example 2: route by department

Rules can use any field on the transaction — including the accounts on the line items. So you can create a second rule: if the total is under £1,000 and any line item uses the Marketing & Advertising account, send it to the marketing budget holder (and, if you like, a second approver).

Multiple rules run side by side. That means each department can have its own approver, thresholds and budget — something larger businesses have long needed.

Example 3: bills without a purchase order

If a bill has a PO number, the spend has already been approved. If it doesn't, and it's over £1,000, it should be checked. Create a custom approval on Bills: PO number is empty and total is greater than 1,000 → send for approval.

Approvals are now set per module — until recently, turning approvals on for bills also turned them on for purchase orders.

Other useful Zoho Books settings

• Attach terms and conditions as a PDF (annexures). Instead of pasting long terms into a tiny text box on the PDF template, go to Settings → Templates → PDF templates, edit the template and upload your terms as a PDF annexure. It's appended to every invoice, quote or purchase order automatically, so nobody has to remember to attach it.
• Payment terms now have their own page in Settings, where you can create, deactivate and set the default.
• Price lists by location. If you operate branches with different pricing, associate a price list with each location and transactions from that location use it automatically.
• Profit margin on estimates. In Settings → General, enable profit margin estimation. Estimates then show cost price and gross profit per line and for the whole quote as you apply discounts — using inventory valuation (FIFO) cost for stock items. It's off by default; we'd recommend turning it on.
• Segmented bank access. In Users & Roles, enable segmented access control on bank accounts so a role only sees the accounts you grant it.

Watch the June 2026 What's New in Zoho webinar to see approvals set up live.