Overview
What I Owe shows all outstanding finalised expenses in one place. It provides an accounts payable workflow with an approval process that helps prevent fraud and ensures expenses are reviewed before payment.
How Approval Works
The approval process in Beeswax creates a separation of responsibilities:
- Accountants can create and finalise expenses but cannot approve them for payment
- Owners and Super Admins are the only roles that can approve expenses for payment
This split is intentional. By separating who can create expenses from who can approve them, you create a checks-and-balances system that reduces the risk of unauthorised payments.
The Approve button appears on the far right of each expense row and is only visible to users with the Owner or Super Admin role.
Supplier Invoice Attachments
The What I Owe report indicates whether a supplier invoice has been attached to each expense. This makes it easy to verify that expenses have supporting documentation before approving them for payment.
Why Multi-Step Approval Matters
The multi-step approval process provides several safeguards:
- Prevents fraud — no single person can both create and approve an expense
- Eliminates duplicates — reviewing expenses before approval catches duplicate entries
- Ensures matching — approvers can verify that the expense matches the attached supplier invoice
Note: The separation between expense creation and approval is a core internal control in Beeswax. Even if your team is small, this workflow helps maintain good financial discipline.