QuickBooks Online tells you what your business spent. It’s much quieter on a harder question: who agreed to that spend, and when?
Over the past 12 months, 1,700+ organizations in close to 60 countries approved more than 1.7 million documents through ApprovalMax on top of QuickBooks Online – nearly 1.6 million of them bills, purchase orders and expenses. That’s over 3 million individual approval decisions, each one resolved before the transaction reached the books.
Here’s what the data shows about how these businesses run financial controls – and how to check your own process against it.
Key takeaways
- Over 70% of QuickBooks Online organizations using ApprovalMax run multi-step approval — averaging 2.4 sign-offs — enforcing segregation of duties that QuickBooks’ built-in settings can’t fully provide.
- Nearly 85% of workflows route documents automatically by amount, vendor, account or class, so a $300 supplies bill takes a short path while a $30,000 contractor invoice collects extra approvals — no one has to remember the policy.
- Control depth is a finance-maturity trait, not an ecosystem one: across 1,700+ QuickBooks Online and 18,000+ Xero organizations the approval profiles are nearly identical — 2.4 steps, 70%+ multi-step, ~85% conditional routing.
Key statistics: approval workflows in QuickBooks Online businesses
Approval workflows in QuickBooks Online finance teams increasingly enforce segregation of duties through multi-step sign-off and automated routing rather than a single approval. Across 1,700+ organizations and 3 million+ approval decisions over 12 months, more than 70% use multi-step approval (2.4 steps on average) and nearly 85% route documents automatically by amount, vendor, account or class. The most controlled setups ensure no document posts to the books until the right people have approved it — making approval a gate, not a record.
12 months to August 2026, aggregated and anonymized across 1,700+ organizations using ApprovalMax with QuickBooks Online:
- 1.7M+ documents approved, including nearly 1.6 million bills, purchase orders and expenses
- 3M+ individual approval decisions
- Over 70% of organizations run multi-step approval – 2.4 steps on average
- Nearly 85% of workflows use conditional routing rules (by amount, vendor, account or class)
- Customers in close to 60 countries; rated 4.6 stars on the QuickBooks App Store
3M+
individual approval decisions across 1,700+ QuickBooks Online businesses (12 months to August 2026)
More than 1.7 million documents — nearly 1.6 million of them bills, purchase orders and expenses — each one resolved before the transaction reached the books.
While the stats are impressive, what does the actual usage data tell us about approval workflows in some of the most trusted businesses across the world?
One approver is not a control
Over 70% of QuickBooks Online organizations run multi-step approval, averaging 2.4 steps: typically a budget holder, then finance, then a director above a threshold.
This is segregation of duties in practice – the thing auditors ask about first, and the thing QBO’s built-in settings can’t fully give you. No one creates and approves their own entry, and nothing posts to the books until the right people have signed off.
70%+
of QuickBooks Online organizations run multi-step approval
2.4 steps on average — a budget holder, then finance, then a director above a threshold. No one creates and approves their own entry.
“True segregation of duties – Preparer, Reviewer, and Approver roles are cleanly separated, so no one can create and approve their own entry. … Unapproved entries never touch your real books.”
— Teodosio, Controller, US
Nearly 85% of workflows route documents automatically
The large majority of workflows use conditional rules: documents route by amount, vendor, account or class. A $300 supplies bill takes a short path; a $30,000 contractor invoice automatically collects extra approvals.
That’s the practical difference between an approval policy and an enforced one – nobody has to remember the rules, and nobody can route around them.
“Clear approval processes, stronger internal controls, and a solid audit trail without adding unnecessary complexity.”
— Mike, Finance Manager at a US construction company
QuickBooks businesses take controls as seriously as anyone
Here’s the finding that surprised us. We ran the same analysis on 18,000+ Xero-connected organizations, and the control profiles are nearly identical: 2.4 approval steps on average in both ecosystems, over 70% multi-step in both, roughly 85% conditional routing in both.
Control depth is a finance-maturity trait, not an ecosystem one
Run the same analysis on 18,000+ Xero organizations and the numbers barely move — 2.4 approval steps on average, 70%+ multi-step, and ~85% conditional routing in both. Businesses that take approvals seriously configure them the same way, whichever ledger they run on.
Depth of financial control isn’t an ecosystem trait – it’s a finance-maturity trait. Businesses that take approvals seriously configure them the same way, whichever ledger they run on.
The 3-question approval check
1. Does anything reach QuickBooks unapproved? In these 1,700+ businesses, unapproved documents never touch the books – approval is a gate, not an afterthought.
2. Would a $500 and a $50,000 bill follow different paths – automatically? If routing depends on memory or email, you have a policy, not a control.
3. Could you hand your auditor a complete approval trail in minutes? Every one of those 3 million decisions is logged – who, what, when.
If any answer is no, that’s fixable in an afternoon.
See how you compare
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Methodology: figures are aggregated, anonymized production data covering the 12 months to August 2026 across paying organizations with a live QuickBooks Online connection. Workflow metrics cover bill and purchase order workflows on current workflow versions.
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