Invoice Approvals
You can access the Invoice Approvals module from either Commitments and Invoices or from My Reviews. The invoice approvals you see is based on the type of approval process that is configured:
- If the approval process is pooled, you see the invoices for activities associated with the finance groups to which you belong.
- If the approval process is by controlling funding account contact or by authorization rules, you see the invoices assigned to you for review.
Your system administrator configures the review process for invoices.
The approval process begins when you save and submit an invoice. The invoice cost is applied to the associated activities when the invoice is pending approval or approved.
You submit an invoice for approval. The approval process is configured so that the controlling funding account contact reviews the invoice. The controlling funding account contact accesses the review in the Invoice Approvals module in My Reviews, and approves the invoice. You can now pay the invoice.
If your organization uses an external accounting system, you can set up an accounting integration to synchronize the invoice financial records with the financial records in the application through the Integration Workbench.
Details
If necessary, you can edit the invoice during the approval. For more information, see the Key Fields section in Invoice Management.
Invoice Items
This section itemizes the goods or services purchased from the supplier. For more information, see the Invoice Items section in Invoice Management.
Expense Categories in Invoices
You can associate an invoice item with an expense category to specify the purpose for which the funds are being used. The Expense Categories in Financials system parameter determines whether you can associate an invoice item with an expense category, and whether it is required.
You receive an invoice from a supplier for these items:
- 10 golf shirts with your logo for employees to wear at a trade show booth
- 350 pencils with your logo to give away to prospective customers at a trade show booth
- 75 binders for use at the customer conference
- Creative fees for the design of the new corporate logo
You associate the items with these expense categories:
| Invoice Item | Expense Category |
|---|---|
Golf shirts | Trade shows |
Pencils | Trade shows |
Binders | Customer conferences |
Creative fees | Corporate branding |
Activities can be funded by multiple funding accounts. If the activity for the invoice item is funded by multiple accounts, the expense category might determine which funding account is charged for the invoice item. For more information, see Funding Account Allocation in Activities.
Funding Account Summary
The Funding Account Summary section displays the funding accounts associated with the invoice based on the associated activity or activities. Each funding account item shows the budget, forecast, commitments, pending and paid invoices, and outstanding commitments associated with the account.
Approvals
The Approvals tab lists the users who are involved in the approval process. This tab appears if the Invoice Approval system parameter is set to use either authorization rules or the controlling funding account contact.
The setting of the Invoice Approval system parameter determines which kind of approval process is used.
Accounting Integration Overrides
The Accounting Integration Summary section appears if your company integrates with an external accounting system. You might be required to be in the finance group for the activity with which the invoice is associated to view this section.
You can override the information in the Accounting Integration Summary section of the invoice approval. For each funding account to which the invoice is mapped, the associated accounting integration attributes are multiplied by their allotted percentages to assign an amount to each item based on the total for the invoice. The accounting integration attributes represent the general ledger information. The amount allocated from each funding account is determined on the Financials tab in the Funding Account Allocation section for the activity. The percentage is determined on the Accounting Integration tab in a funding account.
If you override the allocations in the Accounting Integration Summary section for an invoice approval, the total amount still needs to equal the total amount of the invoice.
You have two funding accounts that fund a $3,000 invoice. Each funding account was set up to contain two accounting integration attributes. The activity funding account allocations were set up so that $1,000 is funded by Funding Account A, and $2,000 is funded by Funding Account B. One of the attributes is shared by each funding account.
- Funding Account A
- 123 A - 40 percent allocation
- 456 B - 60 percent allocation
- Funding Account B
- 456 B - 50 percent allocation
- 789 C - 50 percent allocation
Therefore, in the Accounting Integration Summary section, you see 3 items. The amount for each item is determined by the percentage allocation for each funding account and the total amount that is funded by each funding account.
- 123 A - funds 40 percent of $1,000 from Funding Account A: $400
- 456 B - funds 60 percent of $1,000 from Funding Account A, and 50 percent of $2,000 from Funding Account B: $1,600
- 789 C - funds 50% of $2,000 from Funding Account B: $1,000
During the invoice approval, you decide to change the amount that is funded by attribute 123 A to $200. Because that still leaves the invoice $200 short, you need to add $200 to either attribute 456 B or 789 C. You add $200 to 789 C, and approve the invoice.
If you modify the allocations during an invoice review and reject the invoice, the original allocations default if the invoice is re-submitted for approval.
You can delete and add attributes to fund the invoice during an approval as well. The total amount of the funding attributes must be equal to the amount of the invoice before you can approve the invoice.
Notifications
If you need to have an invoice approval process with automatically sent notifications, your system administrator need to set the invoice approval system parameters to Yes:
For more information about the invoice approval configuration, parameters and notification options, please see Invoice Management: Concepts.
For the financial system parameters, please see System Parameters: Financial Management Tab.