Submit Draft Invoices for Approval in Batch Billing

You can use Batch Billing to submit multiple invoices for approval at one time.

If you use the Invoice Approval feature, invoices must be submitted for approval and then approved before they can be final accepted and posted. You can submit invoices one at a time in Interactive Billing.

To submit invoices for approval in Batch Billing, complete the following steps:

  1. From the Vision Navigation menu, click Billing > Batch Billing.
  2. Click Tools > Options to open the Billing Session Options dialog box.
  3. Select options for the batch and click OK.
  4. On the Main tab of the Batch Billing form, select a set of options based on whether or not you want to include only invoices to be submitted for approval in the batch. If you have different printing requirements for invoices that require approval and invoices that do not require approval, you can run them in separate batches.
    If you want to submit invoices for approval in the batch, select the following options:
    • Draft Run in the Run Type field drop-down list
    • Submit invoices for Projects with approvals enabled check box
    • Include Only Projects with approvals enabled option in the Projects Selection section
    If you want to submit invoices for approval and process other draft invoices that do not require invoice approval in one batch, select the following options:
    • Draft Run in the Run Type field drop-down list
    • Submit invoices for Projects with approvals enabled check box
    • Include All Projects option in the Projects Selection section
  5. In the Select Specific Projects field, use the Project Lookup to filter the projects for which you want to process invoices.
  6. Choose how you want invoices to be reviewed. On the Main tab of the Batch Billing form, you can select various options that allow you to print, email, or not print invoices in the batch run.

    If you select the Do not print when generating invoices check box, which prevents invoices from being sent to the printer when you run the batch, submitted invoices will be available to review in Billing Invoice Approvals and Billing Interactive Approvals and available to print on the Previously Run Batches tab in Batch Billing.

    If you do not want to send an invoice report to be printed when you run the batch, select the Do not create report for submitted invoices check box. This allows the batch to be processed faster. You can review submitted invoices in Billing > Invoice Approvals or Billing > Interactive Approvals. Invoices are not emailed when you select this option.

  7. In the Run Description field, enter a description for the run, and then make any other appropriate selections on the Main tab.
  8. To process the batch, click one of the following toolbar options on the Batch Billing form:
    Option Description
    Run Use this option to submit invoices for approval immediately. If you selected to include all projects (and include invoices that do not require approval in the batch), a draft invoice is printed for each invoice included in the batch run.
    Schedule Use this option to schedule the invoices to be submitted for approval automatically at a future time. If you selected to include all projects (and include invoices that do not require approval in the batch), a draft invoice is generated for each invoice included in the batch run.
  9. On the Billing Comments dialog box, enter comments for invoice approvers and then click OK. Comments example: "Please review and approve the invoices by Friday, March 27th."

    The comments that you enter apply to all the invoices that require approval in the batch. If you need to add different comments for a particular invoice, submit the invoices for approval in Batch Billing, and then go to Interactive Billing or Interactive Approvals and update the submitted comments for the particular invoice.

    If you clicked Run on the Batch Billing form toolbar and you specified that a dashboard or email alert be sent to approvers when an invoice for a project is submitted, an alert is sent automatically to approvers. The alerts include a hyperlink to the Invoice Approval application in Billing. (Alerts and their message content are specified for an invoice approval process in Configuration > Billing > Invoice Approval Process. An invoice approval process is specified for a project in its billing terms.)

  10. If you clicked Schedule on the Batch Billing toolbar, complete the entries on the Schedule dialog box to submit the invoices at a future time, and click OK. When the invoices are submitted, if you specified that a dashboard or email alert be sent to approvers when an invoice for a project is submitted, an alert is sent automatically to approvers—the same as when you click Run to submit invoices for approval immediately.