For Charterers · EPCs · Vessel Owners

Invoice Approval Software for Maritime Principals

You can keep emailing invoices for approval across four inboxes, or you can approve them in the same system where the job was created. Base is invoice approval software built around the principal-operator relationship: multi-stage workflow, line-item veto, guest access for reviewers, and a full audit trail on every approval.

Invoice Approval
INV-FDA-2847 · Stage 2 of 3
AWAITING REVIEW
Stage 1
Ops ✓
Stage 2
Finance
Stage 3
PM
Charge LineAmountReview
Pilot services$8,400
Tug assist$5,250
Linesmen (overtime)$1,850?
Agency fee$2,100·
Rejection reason: Overtime rate needs backup documentation.

The approval email chain is the slowest part of every port call.

Operations ran the vessel. Finance has the numbers. The invoice sits, waiting on an email nobody opened. Every day it waits, nothing moves.

Stop emailing PDAs for approval.

Four inboxes, three forwards. No shared record of what was approved.

Stop exporting charge lines to Excel.

Finance asks which charges. Ops ships a spreadsheet. Next week it’s two revisions behind.

Stop losing rejection reasons.

The reviewer flags one line. The reason lives in paragraph three of a reply-all thread.

Stop waking up to 18-day backlogs.

Invoices you thought were approved, aren’t. Port calls you thought were closed, aren’t.

How does invoice approval work in Base?

A principal’s reviewer opens Base, approves line by line, and the operator sees it live. No email, no spreadsheet, no forwarded PDF.

Day 0

Submitted

Operator marks it ready. Auto-enters APPROVAL with charge lines and source docs attached.

Stage 1

Ops review

Reviewer checks charge codes, vessel, and dates. Approves, queries, or rejects per line.

Stage 2

Finance review

AP checks totals, currency, and tax against the job proforma. No email required.

Stage 3

PM sign-off

PM signs off on high-value or flagged charges. Optional, configurable per client.

Approved

Ready to pay

Invoice enters the PAID workflow and syncs to accounting. Top orgs close this in hours.

Approve or reject individual charge lines, not whole invoices.

Every charge line can be approved, queried, or rejected on its own. Write a rejection reason once and your operator sees it in context, next to the line that failed. No more reply-all threads asking which charge was wrong. Works with OCR AP automation and document generation.

Line-item review
7 LINES
ChargeAmountAction
Berth dues · 48h$4,250APPROVE
Pilotage$3,800APPROVE
Crew launch · overtime$1,450REJECT
Waste disposal$720APPROVE
Reason captured: “Need launch service dispatch log + OT authorization. Resubmit with backup.”
6 APPROVED 1 REJECTED
Guest reviewer
charterer-ops@northatlantic.example
GUEST
Visible scope
MV Atlantic Pioneer 3 active port calls 12 invoices
APPROVAL QUEUE
INV-FDA-2847 · SantosAWAITING
INV-FDA-2841 · RotterdamAPPROVED
INV-FDA-2838 · HoustonAPPROVED
No seat license · scoped to this vessel only

Give your reviewers a scoped login, not a full seat.

A new charterer joins the project and needs to sign off on every invoice for their vessel call. You don’t need another seat license; you give them a Guest login. They see only their job’s charges, only their vessel’s invoices, only their approval queue. The operator still owns the data. The principal still gets the veto. Nobody pays for visibility they don’t need. Works alongside Base Connect and syncs via QuickBooks.

$1B+

in charges tracked across the platform

85,000+

charge lines moved through approval

15

currencies supported on every invoice

99.95%

invoice PDF rate across 62,595 documents

What do EPCs and charterers ask about invoice approval?

"We already have a voyage management system, so why another tool?"

Your VMS tracks the voyage. Base tracks the money, the approval, and the audit trail. They are different jobs. Base syncs approved invoices to your accounting system so finance doesn’t re-key anything.

"Our agents and reviewers won't adopt another portal."

Guest access means they log in when there is an invoice to review, not every day. No training. No per-seat license. Most reviewers are approving lines within 10 minutes of their first login.

"Demurrage savings won't justify the investment."

Faster approvals mean fewer stalled port calls, cleaner audit trails, and principal reviewers who actually sign off before the next invoice arrives. The savings compound across every vessel call.

"How much faster, exactly?"

EPCs running Base typically cut invoice approval cycle time by roughly 60% in the first 90 days. Multi-stage workflow replaces the forwarded-email bottleneck, and the reviewer sees everything in one place.

Book a Free Demo

See your own invoice approved in the demo.

Bring a real invoice from a recent port call. We’ll import it, set up your approval stages, and walk you through approving (or rejecting) a line, live, in your own tenant, with your real numbers. No prep. Just bring a question.

See how Base handles your approval workflow

Approve invoices in the system that created them.

No more parallel email threads. No more “which charge was that?” No more 18-day backlogs. Book a free demo and we’ll walk through your real approval workflow.

Frequently Asked Questions

Invoice approval software is the system that routes a vendor or disbursement invoice through one or more reviewers before it can be paid. In maritime, that usually means a multi-stage workflow: an operations reviewer checks the charges against the job, a finance reviewer checks the totals and currency, and (optionally) a project manager or client signs off on high-value or flagged items. Good invoice approval software replaces the forwarded-email chain with a single audit trail where every approval, rejection, and reason lives next to the invoice itself.
Invoices auto-enter an APPROVAL status the moment an operator marks them ready. Base routes the invoice through configurable stages, typically Stage 1 (ops), Stage 2 (finance), and an optional Stage 3 (PM or principal). Reviewers see every charge line, source document, and vessel reference in one view. They can approve lines, reject with a written reason, or query for more information. Once every stage approves, the invoice enters the PAID workflow and syncs to your accounting system.
Yes. Base supports Guest access, a scoped login that shows a reviewer only their vessel’s jobs, charges, and invoices. There is no per-seat license for Guest users, and no training required. Most Guest reviewers are approving line items within 10 minutes of their first login. See Base Connect for the full org-to-org collaboration pattern.
Yes. You can configure one stage, two stages, or three-plus stages per client, vessel, or job type. Each stage can have its own reviewer, its own approval threshold, and its own escalation rules. High-value charges can be routed to a senior reviewer automatically; low-value routine charges can skip straight to the finance stage. The workflow is declarative, not hard-coded.
The reviewer writes a rejection reason against the specific line item that failed. The operator sees the reason in context next to the line, revises the charge, and resubmits. The invoice re-enters the workflow at the stage where it was rejected, not from the beginning. The full history (who rejected, when, why, and what changed) is logged permanently.
Yes. On final approval, the invoice syncs to your accounting system with charge lines, tax rates, currency, and payment terms intact. The sync triggers on approval, so nothing reaches your accounting system until every reviewer has signed off. See QuickBooks integration and Xero integration for the full breadth of what syncs.
Yes. Line-item approval is the default. Every charge line on an invoice can be approved, queried, or rejected on its own. You can approve six lines, reject one, and send the invoice back with the rejection reason attached to the failing line only. The operator revises just that line and resubmits.
For a principal-side reviewer setup, implementation is typically hours, not weeks. You configure your approval stages, import your vessel and vendor list, and invite reviewers. For a full operator-side implementation with accounting sync and custom charge codes, plan for one to two weeks with weekly check-ins. Most new clients run their first real invoice through the workflow in week one. See For Hiring Clients for the full principal-side rollout playbook.

Ready to get started?

See how Base works for your operation.