ApprovalMax launches AI bill checks for Xero users

ApprovalMax has launched Approval Intelligence for Xero and QuickBooks Online users. The feature adds artificial intelligence agents to its approval software for finance teams.

It launches with an Approval Agent that reviews supplier bills against an organisation's previous transactions with the same supplier. It flags unusual patterns, including changes in amount, frequency, coding and currency, and presents a summary when a bill reaches the approval stage.

The system does not approve, reject or alter bills. A person remains responsible for the decision, while the software is limited to presenting context and highlighting anomalies.

The move puts the London-based software provider among a growing group of finance technology companies using AI to analyse accounting records and assist staff handling payments. ApprovalMax is initially targeting users of Xero and QuickBooks Online, two accounting platforms widely used by small and medium-sized businesses.

Approval Intelligence is an AI layer that sits over existing approval workflows. At launch, it covers supplier bills, with each bill marked green, amber or red and accompanied by a plain-language explanation of what was compared and what did not match.

That design reflects concerns among finance teams about how far AI should be allowed to go in accounts payable processes. Customer consultations pointed to two conditions: AI could help inform an approval, but should not be recorded as having made one, and any warning raised by the system had to be explainable.

Dan Schonfeld, Chief Financial Officer at ApprovalMax, said the issue for approvers is often access to context rather than authority. "An approver rarely lacks the authority to say no," Schonfeld said. "What they lack is the information, and it's sitting in another system a few clicks away. People check properly when there's time and go on memory when there isn't. That gap widens every time someone leaves the team."

Those principles were built into the product from the outset. The company described the restriction on automated decision-making as deliberate rather than a technical limitation.

"Most of what's being sold in accounts payable right now comes down to the same offer: fewer people involved, more of the process running unwatched," Schonfeld said. "But when a payment goes out that shouldn't have, the person who approved it still answers for it. That part doesn't automate. So we set the limits before we wrote any code. It would never approve anything, and it would never raise a flag we couldn't explain."

Plan rollout

The Approval Agent is available on ApprovalMax's Advanced plan and above. A second tool, the Search Agent, is available across every plan, though the announcement provided no further detail on how it works.

The launch follows recent recognition for the business in the accounting software sector. ApprovalMax was named UK Small Business App of the Year at the Xero Global App Awards 2026.

Founded in 2014, ApprovalMax sells approval automation software for accounts payable and accounts receivable. It serves finance teams, accountants and bookkeepers using Xero, QuickBooks Online and Oracle NetSuite. The company says its software is used by more than 20,000 organisations globally.

AI limits

Approval Agent is the first in a planned series of AI agents under the Approval Intelligence brand. As more tools are introduced, the core approach will remain the same: the software is intended to improve what an approver sees without making the decision itself.

At a time when finance departments are weighing the efficiency gains of automation against audit, accountability and fraud risks, that positioning sets ApprovalMax apart from systems designed to reduce human involvement in payment workflows. Its pitch is that approvers need quicker access to transaction history and clearer warning signs, rather than another layer of unattended processing.

Each decision made through the software continues to be recorded in a timestamped audit trail, alongside delegated authority rules and approval chains used by customers managing purchasing and payment controls.