Payment Approvals let you require sign-off from named teammates before any ACH, wire, or check leaves your Relay account, and the feature is included on every plan.
What you need before you start
A Relay account with permission to manage approval settings
The team members you want to name as approvers already invited to your Relay account
A short list of which payments should route through approval, filtered by any combination of amount, payment method, initiator, source account, vendor, or bill attachment
If your team members are not yet on the account, invite them first from Settings before you build the rule.
What is a Payment Approval rule in Relay?
A Payment Approval rule is a set of conditions that holds outgoing payments for sign-off before they send. When a payment matches an active rule, Relay pauses it, notifies the named approvers, and only completes the payment once every required approval is in. If a payment is rejected, Relay stops it and notifies the person who initiated it.
Rules can be as narrow as "any wire over $10,000" or as broad as "every payment initiated by a specific team member." You can layer multiple rules and multiple approvers on top of each other.
What payments can Payment Approvals cover?
Payment Approvals apply to every outgoing payment method in Relay: ACH, domestic wires, international wires on the SWIFT network, international wires on local rails, and checks. Rules cover payments made with a bill attached and standalone payments made without a bill.
You can trigger a rule on any combination of these conditions:
Payment method (ACH, wire, check)
Payment initiator (which team member submitted the payment)
Whether a bill is attached to the payment
Payment amount (for example, above a specific dollar threshold)
Vendor
Source account
How do I create a Payment Approval rule?
Follow these six steps in Relay to build and activate a new rule.
Sign in to your Relay account and open the Payments section.
Select Payment Approvals, then click Create Approval Rule.
Give the rule a nickname your team will recognize, such as "Wires over $10K" or "All payments from Operating account."
Choose the conditions that trigger the rule. Use Add condition to layer more than one criterion on the same rule.
Under Must be approved by, select the required approvers. Choose whether any one approver can sign off, or whether every named approver must approve. Use Add approval step if you need sequential approvals from different people or groups.
Click Create rule. The rule is live right away and applies to any new payment that matches its conditions.
You can edit or delete a rule from the same Payment Approvals screen at any time. Changes take effect for new payments; anything already pending approval keeps the rule that was in place when it was submitted.
How do I submit a payment for approval?
Start the payment the way you normally would, and Relay will route it to the right approvers automatically if a rule matches.
Begin a new payment from Payments and enter the payment details.
If the payment matches an active approval rule, Relay shows a notice on the review screen naming the approvers.
Click Send for Approval.
Review the payment summary and confirm.
The payment now sits in the Needs Approval tab and its status is Pending until every required approval is in.
Payment details are locked once a payment is submitted for approval. Approvers see the exact payment that will send, and neither the initiator nor the approver can change those details while the payment is pending. If something needs to change, reject the payment and start a new one.
How do I approve or reject a pending payment?
If you are named as an approver, you review and decide on the payment from the Needs Approval tab in Relay.
Sign in to your Relay account and open Payments.
Click the Needs Approval tab.
Select the payment you want to review.
Check the payment details and the approval timeline showing every required approver and their status.
Click Approve or Reject.
If you reject, you can add an optional reason. Relay notifies the person who initiated the payment.
Once every required approval is in, Relay continues processing the payment automatically. If any required approver rejects it, the payment stops.
How are Payment Approvals different from Bill Approvals?
Payment Approvals are Relay's default approval workflow and cover every outgoing payment method. Bill Approvals are the earlier workflow and continue to apply to bills you create, upload, or sync inside the Bills section.
Bill Approvals run on bills that live in the Bills workflow (uploaded, synced from accounting software, or created inside Bills).
Payment Approvals run on standalone payments and on payments you send via Make a payment, whether or not a bill is attached.
If both workflows exist on your account, they run independently. A bill created in the Bills workflow follows your Bill Approval rules; a wire you send from Payments follows your Payment Approval rules.
Common issues
My payment sent without approval, but I expected a rule to hold it. Open the rule from Payment Approvals and check that every condition matches the payment (method, amount, initiator, vendor, source account). If any condition does not match, the rule will not trigger.
A teammate is not showing up as a possible approver. They need to be invited to your Relay account first. Add them from Settings, then revisit the rule.
The payment is pending but the approver has not been notified. Confirm the approver has email notifications turned on and that their account email is current under Settings.
I need to change a payment that is pending approval. Payment details are locked while pending. Reject the payment, then create a new one with the correct details.
A bill I uploaded is following the wrong workflow. Bills created inside the Bills section use Bill Approvals. Bills uploaded via Make a payment use Payment Approvals. Move the bill into the workflow you want to govern it.
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