Purchase Orders and Approvals for Business Central

Finance & ERP Integrations7 August 2026

3 Minutes

How can businesses add purchase approvals to Business Central without a licence for everyone?

Businesses can add purchase approvals to Business Central without needing a licence for each user by integrating Zahara. Zahara connects through Business Central's REST API, allowing users to request and approve purchases without a Business Central licence. Approved documents are then posted back into Business Central, ensuring a seamless process without manual data entry.

Key Takeaways

Zahara integrates with Business Central via the REST API, requiring no custom development.
Users can request and approve purchases without needing individual Business Central licences.
Approved documents post back into Business Central, fully coded and with original PDFs attached.
Zahara's AI automates invoice capture, reducing manual entry and errors.
Zahara enhances Business Central's capabilities, enabling distributed purchasing and approvals.

Editor's Notes:

Every finance team knows that a powerful ERP like Business Central is a boon, until it comes to extending its reach across the entire organisation. The hitch lies in licencing: every additional user, just to approve or request purchases, demands its own price tag. Enter Zahara, a solution designed to bridge these gaps seamlessly. By integrating with Business Central without spiralling costs, Zahara makes purchase approvals a breeze for everyone in your business, even those who only dip their toes into the system occasionally. Discover how this synergy not only accelerates approvals but also diminishes manual workload and enhances data integrity.

Jump to TL;DR

A powerful ERP is only worth as much as the number of people who can actually use it. Business Central runs the finance function brilliantly, but getting your whole team to request, buy and approve spend inside it is another matter. That's why so many Business Central users bolt Zahara on the front. I've put this short article together to explain how the two work together — and why it means faster approvals, cleaner data and far less manual keying for your finance team. Whether you're already running Business Central or planning a move to it, there's plenty here worth knowing.

Can't Business Central handle purchase orders and approvals already?

It can, up to a point. Business Central is a serious ERP with native purchase orders and approval hierarchies, and for a finance team working inside the system it does a capable job. The friction shows up when you try to bring the whole business into it.

Every person who needs to raise a request or approve spend needs a Business Central licence, which gets expensive fast when most of them only touch the system occasionally. The native approval setup is also heavy to configure and maintain, and it wasn't designed for pre-spend requisitions, distributed purchasing or modern AI invoice capture. That's the gap Zahara fills — giving everyone a simple way to request and approve, from purchase orders through to supplier invoice approvals, without a BC licence each. It answers the question every AP team lives by: "Can I pay this?"

How does the Zahara and Business Central integration work?

Our integration with Business Central connects through its standard REST API, so there's no custom development and you can be live in a single session. Once connected, Zahara pulls your master data in — vendors, GL accounts, dimensions and VAT groups — and keeps it in step. Approved documents then post straight back into Business Central: purchase invoices and purchase orders, fully coded, with the original PDF attached to the record. Nothing is rekeyed, and your ERP stays clean.

How does Zahara cut out manual invoice entry?

Vendors email their invoices straight to Zahara, where our AI reads and captures the details for you — including line items — and matches them against the relevant purchase order. Instead of keying invoices in by hand and reconciling them manually, your team lets the AI-powered capture do the heavy lifting, then simply reviews and approves before the invoice posts to Business Central. Faster, more accurate, and far less tedious.

The bottom line for Business Central users

If you rely on Business Central as your ledger but want everyone — not just licensed finance users — to buy and approve spend properly, Zahara is built to sit right on top of it. You keep the ERP you know and add the distributed purchasing and approval control it was never meant to handle.

Oliver Smith

Head of Digital Marketing

A little about the author...

Oliver is Zahara’s Digital Marketing Manager, bringing a strong mix of SEO, PPC, and website expertise built from years in agency life. Outside of work, he balances time between his art studio, teaching traditional kung fu, and travelling with his family.

Connect with me on LinkedIn

TL;DR

Integrating Zahara with Business Central allows purchase approvals without requiring licences for all users. Zahara streamlines the approval process by connecting through the REST API and automating invoice capture, reducing manual entry and maintaining clean ERP data.

FAQs

Quick answers to the questions readers ask most often about this topic, pulled from Zahara's FAQ collection so you can get the practical detail, avoid the jargon, and move on with confidence.

Can I check budgets before an invoice auto-approves in Business Central?

Yes, on the Business plan or with the budgets feature enabled. Zahara shows what's already committed and what's still available, and can factor that into approval — so spend is checked against budget before it's approved or posted to Business Central, not after.

Can I set value limits for auto approvals in Business Central?

Yes. Zahara routes approvals by value, so you can auto-approve lower-value spend and escalate anything above a threshold to the right person — for example, invoices up to £250 handled automatically, larger amounts sent to a department head or head of finance. It's your policy, applied consistently every time.

Do auto approvals need a purchase order in Business Central?

Not necessarily. You can require a matched purchase order before an invoice auto-approves, or allow trusted-vendor invoices to run through without one. Many teams use both: PO-backed invoices for project spend, and no-PO auto approval for routine, recurring bills.

Do auto-approved invoices still have an audit trail in Business Central?

Yes. Every approval is logged — automatic or manual — with who or what approved it and when. Zahara also stores the original invoice PDF and posts it as an attachment against the record in Business Central, so you get a complete, self-contained audit trail on both sides.

How do auto approvals work with Business Central?

Suppliers email invoices to your Zahara Invoice Inbox. Zahara's AI reads each one — including line items — and checks it against your workflow: is it from a trusted vendor, does it match its purchase order, is it within budget, and is it free of duplicates? If every condition passes, the invoice is approved automatically and posted to Business Central via the REST API. If anything looks off, it drops into a manual approval step instead.

Is it difficult to set up auto approvals in Business Central?

No. Zahara connects to Business Central via the standard REST API and is live in a single session — no custom development or IT project. You configure your workflow rules, trusted vendors and value limits once, and Zahara applies them from then on.

What are auto approvals in Zahara for Business Central?

Auto approvals let Zahara sign off invoices automatically when they meet the rules you set, then post them straight into Business Central — fully coded and ready to pay. Rather than every invoice waiting on a person, only the ones that need a human decision get routed to one. The rest flow through untouched.

What happens when an invoice doesn't meet the auto-approval rules in Business Central?

It isn't rejected — it's simply routed into your standard approval workflow and sent to the right approver, with reminders to keep it moving. Auto approval handles the straightforward invoices so your team can focus on the ones that genuinely need a decision.

What stops the wrong invoice being approved automatically in Business Central?

Several checks run before anything posts to Business Central. Zahara flags duplicate references and suspicious details to help prevent double payments, and its 3-way matching compares the invoice against the purchase order and goods received note — checking quantity, price and line descriptions — to catch mismatches before approval. Anything that fails a rule is held back for manual review rather than paid in error.

Which invoices can be approved automatically in Business Central?

You decide. Auto approval suits invoices from trusted vendors, invoices that match a purchase order at line-item level, and spend that sits within budget and below any value limits you've set. You stay in control of exactly which conditions qualify an invoice for a touchless run.

Will invoices still be coded to the right GL accounts and dimensions?

Yes. Zahara pulls your GL accounts, dimensions, VAT groups and vendors from Business Central and codes each invoice against them as part of the workflow — including custom dimension mapping. Auto-approved invoices arrive in BC fully coded, not as a job left for someone to finish.

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