Require payment before document approval

You can lock a document approval item behind an invoice. The client sees that the finished document is ready in the client portal, but cannot open, approve, or sign it until the invoice is paid. Once payment is submitted, the document unlocks automatically. This is a common way to release a finished tax return: the draft goes out, the client pays your invoice, and only then reviews and approves the return.

Requiring payment needs online payments connected, so clients can actually pay from the locked document. See Accept online payments. Document approval items are available on the Pro plan.

Turn on the payment requirement

1. Open the client request in the job and find the document approval item.
2. Click the item’s drag handle to open its menu and choose Require payment before approval. If the menu entry shows a lock, connect online payments first in Billing settings.
3. The item now shows a Payment required line. Click Link invoice and pick the invoice that must be paid. Only live invoices for the job’s client are listed.

The same menu entry turns the requirement off again. You can replace the linked invoice until the client approves, for example after voiding the original.

You can also turn on the requirement on a job template’s approval item. The setting travels with every job created from the template, including repeating jobs; the invoice is linked on each job at delivery time, since templates never carry invoices.

Sending needs a linked invoice

A request with a payment-required approval item cannot be sent until that item has an invoice linked. This works like the existing rule that an approval item needs its document before sending. Create the invoice first, link it, then send.

What the client sees

In the client portal, the locked item shows the document name and Payment required with a Pay invoice button. Clients with billing access pay from their portal billing page. A client opening the request from a secure email link pays on the invoice’s secure payment page instead, and is offered a Back to your request button after paying, so they land straight back on the document to approve it.

While locked, the client cannot preview, download, approve, or sign the document. For e-signature approval items, the signing link is blocked too.

When the document unlocks

• A card payment unlocks the document immediately.
• A bank debit unlocks it as soon as the payment is submitted. If the bank payment later fails, the document locks again.
• A payment you record manually, or one synced from your accounting integration, unlocks it too, so firms collecting payment outside Tidyflow can still use the lock.
• The invoice must be paid in full. A partial payment keeps the document locked.

Once the client has approved the document, the approval is permanent: the item never re-locks, even if a payment later fails or the invoice is voided.