Approve an Invoice

When a project is configured to use invoice approvals, all of the project's invoices must be approved before they are accepted and posted. The biller submits all invoices in Vision, but you can approve (or reject) an invoice in either iAccess or Vision.

When you approve an invoice, you can also enter comments related to the approval that can be shared easily with others. These comments are simultaneously updated in both iAccess and Vision to ensure that all information related to the invoice is accessible in one location. This also applies to situations where invoices are incorrect and are rejected. In that case, you can enter comments that indicate the needed changes so the invoice can be approved.

If Vision is configured to support invoice approval alerts, an electronic alert can be sent automatically to the appropriate employees after you approve an invoice to notify them that the next action in the approval process is ready for them to complete.

To approve an invoice in iAccess, complete the following steps:

1. Click the indicator that invoices are awaiting approval. If any invoices are awaiting your approval, that indicator () displays on the iAccess toolbar in the upper-right corner of the workspace. The number in the indicator is the number of projects with invoices that have been submitted for approval.
2. In the drop-down list, select the project for which you want to review and approve an invoice.

   iAccess selects the project in the Project Management workspace, displays the draft invoice date and invoice amount in Draft Invoice to Approve on the Invoices tab, and displays the Draft Invoices to Approve toolbar.

3. If an invoice is on file and you want to review it before giving your approval, click on the Draft Invoices to Approve toolbar.
4. To approve the invoice, click on the Draft Invoices to Approve toolbar. iAccess confirms that the invoice's status is Submitted and displays the Billing Comments dialog box.
   • If there is an existing billing comment with In Process in the ACTION column, the status in that column is changed to Approved.
   • If there is no existing comment with In Process in the ACTION column, a new comment row with a status of Approved in ACTION is added to the grid.
5. Select the Approved comment row on the grid and enter your comment in Comment Entry.
6. Click Approve to approve the invoice for billing.

   When you approve the invoice, iAccess updates the invoice status to Approved and, if Vision is configured to support invoice approval alerts, sends an alert to the person responsible for the next step in the process so they can initiate the final billing process for the approved invoice.