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Invoice Approvals
Invoice Approvals

Workflow for approving invoices

Updated over a week ago

Edition: Enterprise

User-level: Set in the security matrix

Previous steps: N/A

Use invoice approvals in Synergy to create an approval workflow for draft invoices. Set an approver, and take your invoices through approval statuses before they're finalised and sent to your client.

This article explains how to use the approvals feature, and how to report on your invoices in the approval workflow.

Adding an approver

Required vs optional approvals

Approving an invoice

Filtering the invoice list

Reporting on invoice approvals

Adding an approver

After you've created a draft invoice, use the right panel arrow to open the approvals menu:

When adding an Approval, you must select an Approver, which has to be an active Staff member. The drop-down will prioritise Recent Approvers, Project Contacts, and then all other Staff.

By default, an Approval will be marked as Required, but you can uncheck this box to set any Approval to Optional.

You can create up to 4 Approvals at a given time, but there are no limitations to the Approvals for a Draft Invoice.

Once you've set your approvers, and whether they are required or not, click 'add approvals' to confirm.

Required vs optional approvals

There are 2 type of Approvals:

Required

A Required Approval means that you cannot finalise the Invoice until that Approval is set to Approved.

Optional

An Optional Approval means that you can finalise the Invoice, even if it’s not set to Approved.

If you try and finalise an Invoice with a Required Approval set to Pending or Rejected, a warning message will let you know that there are pending Approvals.

By default, any Director will be able to bypass this limitation and can select to bulk Approve the Required Approvals for that given Draft Invoice. This feature can be set to different users from the Security Matrix.

Approving an invoice

There are 3 Resolutions an Approval can be set to:

  • Pending

  • Approved

  • Rejected

When an Approval is created, by default, it will be set to Pending.

Team members marked as approvers will receive notifications (either in the notifications centre or by email, depending on notification preferences)

By clicking on the link in the notification, the approver open the invoice right hand panel, and can choose the approval status:

Filtering the invoice list

As an approver, I can filter the invoice list to show only invoices on which I am marked as an approver:

As the team member in charge of finalising and/or sending invoices, I can filter the invoice list by approval status:

This enables you to see those invoices still outstanding for approval, or those rejected that require further follow up.

Reporting on invoice approvals

Reporting

You can report on Invoice approvals in several way.

Reporting Category/Sub-category

Columns/Reporting Criteria

Approvals

  • Approval Resolution

  • Approval Required

  • Approval Date

  • Approval Date First Day of the Week

  • Approval Date First Day of the Month

  • Approval Date Weeks Since

  • Approval Date Weeks Until

Approver
​
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  • All Staff fields

  • Approver Created by

  • Approver Date updated

  • Approver Updated by

Approved by

  • All Staff fields

  • Approved By Created By

  • Approved By Date Updated

  • Approved By Updated By

In combination to these reporting fields, there are also 6 default reports:

Report name

Default filters

Shown data

Invoices - Current Pending Approvals

  • Invoice type (Invoice)

  • Invoice Date (This month)

  • Approval Resolution (Pending)

  • Invoice Draft Status (All)

  • Invoice Number

  • Invoice date

  • Status

  • Approval Required

  • Approver Name

  • Approval Resolution

  • Due date

  • Project Number and Name

  • Invoice amount (ex tax & inc tax)

  • Approval Date

Invoices - All Approvals by Date

  • Invoice type (Invoice)

  • Invoice Date (Previous 90 days)

  • Approval Resolution (All)

  • Invoice Draft Status (All)

  • Invoice Number

  • Invoice date

  • Status

  • Approval Required

  • Approver Name

  • Approval Resolution

  • Due date

  • Project Number and Name

  • Invoice amount (ex tax & inc tax)

  • Approval Date

Invoices - Current Pending Approvals by Approver

  • Invoice type (Invoice)

  • Approval Resolution (Pending)

  • Approver Name (Empty)

  • Invoice Draft Status (All)

  • Invoice Number

  • Invoice date

  • Status

  • Approval Required

  • Approver Name

  • Approval Resolution

  • Due date

  • Project Number and Name

  • Invoice amount (ex tax & inc tax)

Invoices - Current Pending Approvals by Office

  • Invoice type (Invoice)

  • Approval Resolution (Pending)

  • Invoice Office (Empty)

  • Invoice Draft Status (All)

  • Invoice Number

  • Invoice date

  • Status

  • Approval Required

  • Approver Name

  • Approval Resolution

  • Due date

  • Project Number and Name

  • Invoice amount (ex tax & inc tax)

  • Approval Date

Invoices - Current Pending Approvals by Project Manager

  • Invoice type (Invoice)

  • Approval Resolution (Pending)

  • Project Manager Name (Empty)

  • Invoice Draft Status (All)

  • Invoice Number

  • Invoice date

  • Status

  • Approval Required

  • Approver Name

  • Approval Resolution

  • Due date

  • Project Number and Name

  • Invoice amount (ex tax & inc tax)

  • Approval Date

Invoices - Current Rejected Approvals

  • Invoice type (Invoice)

  • Approval Resolution (Rejected)

  • Invoice Draft Status (All)

  • Invoice Number

  • Invoice date

  • Status

  • Approval Required

  • Approver Name

  • Approval Resolution

  • Due date

  • Project Number and Name

  • Invoice amount (ex tax & inc tax)

  • Approval Date

Related Articles
Credit returning to WIP
Contact - Invoices
Crediting the invoice
Pre-Invoicing checklist
Project Invoices Overview
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