What should a freelancer do when the person who approved the invoice leaves the company?

What actually happens to an invoice when the approver leaves

In most companies, an invoice waiting for approval is tied to a specific person in the workflow. When that person leaves, the item does not automatically reroute; it sits in a queue that nobody is watching until someone reassigns it. Meanwhile, your emails go to an inactive mailbox that may or may not forward to anyone. From your side, it looks like the client has gone silent. From the client's side, nothing looks wrong at all, because nobody is looking.

The situation is worse if the departed contact was also the only person who knew what you were hired to do. A new manager receiving an invoice for work they did not commission will pause it by reflex, and that pause is reasonable from their seat. Your job is to make it easy for someone with no context to say yes, which means providing the context rather than demanding the payment. Related: How to Write a Payment Reminder That Gets Paid, Not Ignored

Keep reading: Why Clients Pay Late, and What Actually Helps, How to Write a Payment Reminder That Gets Paid, Not Ignored, Payment Terms That Protect a Freelancer. See how InvoiceNudgr helps you automatic invoice reminders for freelancers.

Finding the new owner

Start with the people you already know. If there was anyone else on the project thread, email them directly with a brief note: your contact has left, you have an open invoice they approved, who should you talk to now. If you have no other contacts, try the accounts payable inbox, the general company line, or a polite message to the department head whose name appears on the company's site. Keep it short and neutral; you are asking for a name, not making a claim.

When you reach the new owner, do not assume they know anything. Send one email with everything needed to verify the work: the signed agreement or statement of work, the original approval (a forwarded email from the departed contact saying "approved" is gold), the deliverables or a link to them, and the invoice itself. Lead with the one-sentence summary and put the documents below it. The easier you make verification, the faster the approval.

Rebuilding approval when the paper trail is thin

If you never got written approval, you are relying on the work speaking for itself. Point to evidence the client can check internally: the deliverables in their systems, the meetings on the departed contact's calendar, invoices from earlier phases that were paid without issue. Offer to walk the new owner through the work. Most people will approve payment for work that clearly exists and was clearly used, even if the paperwork was informal. Related: Why Clients Pay Late, and What Actually Helps

Be prepared for the new owner to ask for a discount or to question the scope, especially if they inherited a budget problem. Respond the way you would to any partial dispute: split off anything genuinely uncertain, stand on the documented portion, and put a deadline on the conversation. If the company simply refuses to recognize work their former employee commissioned, that is a contract question, and your signed agreement with the company (not the individual) is what matters.

Protecting yourself for next time

The lasting fix is to never have exactly one person at a client who knows about your work and your invoices. Copy a second contact, or the AP inbox, on every invoice. Ask for written approval of each milestone, even a one-line email reply, and store it with the invoice. Keep your agreement with the company as the legal entity, with a clause that says approvals by the client's project lead bind the client. Related: The Follow Up Cadence That Gets Invoices Paid

Set your reminder tool to notice silence, not just lateness. If a client who usually acknowledges within a day goes quiet for a week, that is a signal worth a phone call, and it often surfaces a departure before the invoice is even due. Turnover at clients is normal and you cannot prevent it, but you can make sure it costs you a few emails rather than a few thousand dollars. Related: What to Do When an Invoice Goes Unpaid