How advanced line approval works

What it solves

By default, an invoice is approved as a single unit with one flow and one set of approvers. This becomes a problem when a single invoice spans multiple cost centers: the whole document ends up in one group’s queue even though only part of the spend belongs to them.

Advanced line approval solves this by giving each line its own approval flow.

How it routes

When advanced line approval is enabled, Nordflow evaluates each line on the invoice separately:

1. It reads each line’s dimensions (cost center, department, project, and so on).
2. It applies first-approval rules per line to find the responsible group.
3. Lines that route to different groups run in parallel — each group sees the document with their own line highlighted.
4. Each group approves their line independently.
5. Once every line is approved, the document continues to any remaining steps (including final approval) as a single unit.

The flow strip on the document reflects the parallel structure, typically shown as a Multiple Flow (+N) branch.

The reject rule

Rejecting any single line rejects the entire document and resets all parallel approvals, including lines that other groups have already signed off. This is by design — a rejection signals the document needs rework. The recommended approach is for approvers to leave a note and ask the bookkeeper to correct the specific line rather than rejecting the whole document.

When to use it

Advanced line approval is most useful when invoices regularly span multiple cost centers with different approver chains. If most invoices are single-line, or if all cost centers share the same approvers, the added complexity is not necessary.