When to use it
Approve all exists for the case where inspecting each invoice individually is wasted attention: end-of-month catch-up with a pile of routine subscription receipts, or a backlog of small, well-documented invoices from vendors you already trust. Filter to a bucket first (for example, work the "No document" and "Check data" buckets down to zero), then bulk-approve what remains pending.
When NOT to use it: anything you'd want to flag. Flagging is a per-invoice decision with a per-invoice reason. If the same issue applies to many items, apply one feedback template to up to 50 targets in one action instead — see using flag templates.
How it works
- The cap is 50 per request. The server accepts at most 50 invoices per bulk-review call.
- The frontend chunks the page. Clicking Approve all sends the loaded page's pending invoices in sequential chunks of up to 50 — you don't manage batches yourself.
- The scope is the loaded page. The invoice list loads up to 100 rows. If the period holds more pending invoices than that, Approve all handles what's loaded, and the copy says so.
- The button hides itself when the loaded page has no pending rows.
Page-honest by design
The confirm dialog never promises more than it can deliver. With more pending invoices in the period than the page loaded, it reads "N of M" — approve N now, and the rest after the next page loads. The bucket counts above the list are computed server-side over the full period, so you always know how much is genuinely left, regardless of what one page shows.
The receipt gate still applies
Bulk approval cannot bypass the receipt gate. An incoming invoice that carries VAT but has no usable document is skipped, not approved — there is no override, in bulk or individually. The server decides the skips, and the result toast is explicit: "Approved N · M skipped (no document)".
What to do with the skips: switch to the No document bucket and resolve each one — usually by requesting the receipt from your client in one click. Zero-VAT invoices without a document can be approved individually behind an explicit confirm, but never silently in bulk. Background on the gate: why VAT bookings need a receipt.
After the bulk approval
Approving an invoice does more than change a status: its confirmed matched bank transactions are cleared automatically — never past the receipt gate, never over an open client query, and split payments only once every contributing invoice is reviewed. If an invoice later leaves "reviewed" (a flag, a client edit), those auto-cleared transactions reopen. Every approval, auto-clear, and revert is audit-logged.
Nothing about bulk approval is destructive: any status can be changed again later. If you approved something you shouldn't have, open the invoice and flag it — the cycle in auto-reset on client edit takes over from there.
Bulk actions on the transaction side
Transactions have their own bulk operations with the same 50-cap and the same honesty rules: bulk clear (with per-transaction skip reasons — receipt required, already cleared, open query) and bulk categorize (rows that inherit a category from a matched invoice are skipped, and a category that doesn't fit a row's money direction is skipped rather than mis-booked). See bulk clearing and smart cohorts.
Related
- The review queue, explained — buckets and the review cycle
- Why VAT bookings need a receipt — the gate that produces the skips
- Bulk clearing and smart cohorts — the transaction-side bulk actions
- Request a receipt from your client — resolving "skipped (no document)"
- Using flag templates — bulk feedback instead of bulk flagging