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
Users with permission to modify bills can archive a bill. Admins and Owners have this permission. An Admin can grant it to AP Clerks by enabling Edit and archive existing (submitted) bills and payments in the Accounts Payable role settings, or add the same permission to a Custom Role. If you do not have this permission, ask your Ramp Admin to grant it or archive the bill for you.
- Navigate to Bill Pay.
- Locate the bill you want to archive.
- Click the three-dot menu (⋮) to the right of the bill.
- Select Archive.
- 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 has been completed or can no longer be canceled.
- The bill was manually marked as paid.
- The bill was imported from your accounting provider. Archive it in your accounting provider instead.
When you archive a bill, Ramp cancels any scheduled or in-flight payment that is still eligible for cancellation. Only Admins can archive a bill with an in-flight card payment. If the payment cannot be canceled, the bill cannot be archived. 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 Ramp-created bill that has already synced to your accounting provider, Ramp asks the provider to remove or reverse the corresponding record. The exact action depends on the provider and record state. For example, Sage Intacct can reverse posted accounting records instead of deleting them.
Ramp archives the bill before your accounting provider processes the request. If the provider rejects the request, such as because the accounting period is closed, the bill remains archived in Ramp, the record remains in your accounting provider, and a sync error appears in Bill Pay. To resolve this, make the required change in your accounting provider and retry the sync from Ramp, or remove the record directly in your accounting provider. See Identify and resolve sync errors for more details.
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 ask your accounting provider to remove or reverse it. 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 by default. You can also find them from Overview by selecting Archived in the Status filter.