Archive a bill on Bill Pay

Overview

Archiving closes a bill without payment and moves it to the History tab of Bill Pay with an Archived status. This is a permanent action — archived bills cannot be restored, unarchived, or moved back to an active state.

How to archive a bill

Any Admin, Owner, or AP Clerk can archive a bill:

1. Navigate to Bill Pay.
2. Locate the bill you want to archive.
3. Click the three-dot menu (⋮) to the right of the bill.
4. Select Archive bill.
5. Confirm the action when prompted.

The bill moves to the History tab with an Archived status.

When a bill cannot be archived

A bill cannot be archived if:

• The bill payment is processing or has been completed (in-flight and paid bills cannot be archived).
• The bill was manually marked as paid.
• The bill has a pending approval.

Cancel any in-flight payments first, then archive the bill. See Cancel a bill for details.

Can I unarchive or restore an archived bill?

No. Archiving a bill is permanent and cannot be undone. Ramp does not provide an unarchive or restore option. Archived bills remain visible in the History tab for audit purposes but cannot be moved back to an active state.

If you archived a bill by mistake and still need to pay it, re-upload the original invoice to Bill Pay to create a new bill. See Upload an invoice for details.

Effect on your accounting provider

When you archive a bill that has already synced to your accounting provider, Ramp sends a delete request to remove the corresponding record. What happens next depends on the accounting period:

• Open accounting period: The delete succeeds and the record is removed from your accounting provider.
• Closed accounting period: Your accounting provider may reject the delete request. The bill is still archived in Ramp, but the record remains in your accounting provider and a sync error appears in Bill Pay. To resolve this, either open the period in your accounting provider and retry the sync from Ramp, or manually delete the record directly in your accounting provider. See Identify and resolve sync errors for more details.

Ramp does not create reversing journal entries when archiving a bill — it sends only a delete request.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between archiving and canceling a payment?

Canceling a payment stops an in-flight payment that has not yet been delivered to the vendor. It returns the bill to an unpaid state but leaves it in your active queue. Archiving closes the bill entirely and moves it to History. See Bill lifecycle for the full set of bill states.

What is the difference between archiving and rejecting a bill?

Rejecting a bill during the approval process does not remove it from your accounting provider — only archiving does. A rejected bill stays in your bill queue and can be resubmitted for approval.

Can I recover a deleted draft bill?

No. Deleting a draft bill is also permanent and cannot be undone. Deleted draft bills are permanently removed from Ramp. If you need the bill, re-upload the original invoice to Bill Pay.

Where can I find archived bills?

Archived bills are visible in the History tab of Bill Pay. You can also filter any Bill Pay tab by the Archived status using the Status filter.