Invoice Approvals Overview

Invoice Approvals is an optional feature that requires invoices to be approved before they are accepted and posted.

This feature allows you to efficiently move draft invoices through the submittal, rejection, approval, and acceptance stages to produce final invoices. Electronic alerts are sent automatically to the appropriate employees to notify them that the next action in the approval process is ready for them to complete. You can enter approval comments for invoices that can be shared easily with others.

You turn on this feature on the Miscellaneous tab in Configuration > Billing > General.

After the feature is turned on, you complete the following configuration:

• Set up invoice approval processes in Configuration > Billing > Invoice Approval Process. Specify:

  • Who, within a project (project manager, principal, and so on), can approve and reject submitted invoices.

  • Who will receive alerts when invoices are submitted, approved, rejected, and unsubmitted.

  • How and when alerts are delivered, and the message in the alerts.

• Specify in a project's billing terms (on the Misc tab of the Billing Terms form) whether or not a project will use invoice approvals and which invoice approval process it will use.

• As needed, you can specify on the General tab in User Options a delegate to approve invoices in your absence if you are an invoice approver.

After you enable the Invoice Approval feature, certain options become available:

• The Invoice Approval Process menu item displays in Configuration > Billing.

  On the Invoice Approval Process form, you set up invoice approval processes to use for projects. An approval process defines who can approve and reject invoices and how and when notification alerts are sent.

• An Enable Invoice Approvals check box and an Approval Process field display on the Misc tab in Configuration > Billing > Default Terms and on the Misc tab in Billing > Billing Terms.

  In Default Billing Terms Configuration, you enter the default invoice approval settings to use for new projects. You can override the prefilled settings on a project-by-project basis in a project's billing terms.

  For projects that are set up before the Invoice Approval feature is enabled, you enter invoice approval settings in a project’s billing terms. You can also use the use Search and Replace utility to enter the appropriate approval process for a group of projects.

To move invoices through the approval process, from the Billing menu, you:

• Submit invoices for approval in Interactive Billing or Batch Billing.

• Approve invoices in Interactive Approvals, Invoice Approvals, or Interactive Billing.

• Reject invoices in Interactive Approvals or Invoice Approvals.

• Unsubmit an invoice in Interactive Billing to begin the approval process again.

• Final accept an invoice in Interactive Billing or Batch Billing after it is approved.

Multicompany

If you have multiple companies in Vision, you must turn on and set up the Invoice Approvals feature for each company. However, the invoice approval processes that you set up are available for all companies; you do not have to set up separate approval processes for each company.