Summary: This article reviews the ways in which you can send an invoice for approval. Please note that approval notifications are batched in 15-minute intervals and will not immediately be sent.   

Payables permission: Upload, process, and code documents

Article Contains:

• Overview
• Manual Send for Approval
• Partially Automated Approval
• Fully Automated Approval
• Add a New Approver

Overview

When the global invoice approval threshold is exceeded, invoices must be approved. This is done once coding attributes have been completed, either through automation or manual entry. 

Three scenarios exist for sending invoices to approvers:

1. Manual: No approval policy is When there is no approval policy in place, you can manually add an invoice approver to the invoice.
2. Partially Automated: An approval policy is in place, but the coding is not automated, or you do not have auto-send to approvers enabled, so you must have the invoice to send it.
3. Fully Automated: An approval policy is in place, the coding is automated, and auto-send to approvers is enabled in Document Settings.

Manual Send for Approval

If an invoice policy is not defined, the status of the invoice will be 'Needs approvers' and approvers can be assigned ad-hoc. If the status is 'then the document must be reviewed and coded before you can populate approvers. To assign an approver, navigate to the document viewer by clicking on the document icon.

Click on the Approvals tab.

Here users can identify first, second, and third-level approvers for the invoice. The drop-down list will have names of existing Centime users with the permission to approve invoices. 

You can save the invoice at any time and any coding and approval changes will be saved. When you are ready to send the invoice for approval, click the Invoice Actions button on the top right and click Send for Approval. 

If the invoice details are coded and you populate approvers, you can select "Send for approval" and the invoice will immediately route to the selected approvers.

To add a new user as an Invoice approver, refer to the section at the end of this article. 

Partially Automated Approval

Partial automation occurs when the following is true:

• Invoice coding is complete (whether by manual review or automation)
• Approval policies are triggered and approvers populated
• Auto-send to approvers is not turned on

When the above conditions are true, the approvers will auto-populate in the Approvals tab and the status will be 'Ready for approval.' To send an invoice for approval, click on the 'Send for approval' action in the Documents tab. Invoices with the status 'Ready for approval' and 'Rejected' will be displayed. 

Select the desired invoices and click Confirm. The invoices will now be sent for approval and will have the status 'Awaiting approval.'

You can also send an invoice for approval by clicking into the invoice document and using the Invoice Actions button while working in the invoice. 

Fully Automated Approval

Fully automated approval occurs when the following conditions are met:

• Invoice coding is complete via automation (i.e. you've opted to save invoice coding previously)
• Approval policies are triggered and approvers populated
• Auto-send to approvers is turned on

When these conditions are met, an invoice can be automatically captured and sent to an invoice approver within moments of uploading an invoice. When this occurs, the status will be 'Awaiting approval.' If you need to make any changes to the invoice, you can always recall it. 

Add a New Approver

In the even that your approver does not exist within the system, you can add them from the document viewer. 

Select 'Add new approver' from the Approvals tab.  

Enter the user's first name, last name, and email address. 

Once this information is submitted, users can assign invoices to the new invoice approver.

If you want this approver to be part of an invoice approval policy for the future, be sure to add them to a policy.