Billing · Daily operations · 6 min read

Approve an invoice before posting

Send an invoice for approval, approve or refuse it as a second person, and understand when an approval is voided.

Before you begin

• Approval policies are switched on under Administration > Applications > Billing > Features, and at least one approval policy is Active and inside its valid dates.
• The person who prepares the invoice has billing.manage. The approver has billing.approve and is a different person.

When approval is needed

The billing record shows the chip Needs approval when an active policy asks for it:

• the document kind is covered (invoice, bill, credit note or debit note; empty means all);
• the total in AED is at or above the policy's threshold (the total is multiplied by the exchange rate, so a USD 3,000 invoice at 3.6725 counts as AED 11,017.50);
• or the policy ticks Always approve invoices with no order behind them and the invoice has no line linked to an order;
• or the invoice is a note whose correction reason Needs approval.

Example with a threshold of AED 10,000.00: an invoice of 10,500.00 needs approval; one of 9,999.99 raised from an order does not, and posts directly. A manual AED 100.00 invoice with no order needs approval if the "always approve" box is ticked, even with a threshold of 1,000,000.

Steps: send for approval

1. Open the draft invoice from Billing > Customers > Invoices.
2. Press Send for approval.
3. Enter a Note (for example "Urgent - customer waiting"), up to 1,000 characters.
4. Confirm.

The record shows "Waiting for approval" and appears under Billing > Approvals with you as Asked by. Pressing Post now is refused: 'This document needs approval before it posts. Send it for approval.'

If no policy asks for approval, sending is refused: 'No approval policy asks for this document; it can be posted.'

Steps: approve or refuse

1. The approver opens Billing > Approvals. The list shows Number, Kind, Partner, Date, Asked by and Total.
2. Open the record and check the invoice.
3. To approve, press Approve and add an optional note.
4. To refuse, press Refuse and enter Why. The reason is required: 'This is required.'

What happens next

• Approved: the record shows who approved. Post now works.
• Refused: the state is rejected and the note is kept. The preparer edits the invoice and sends it again.

Good to know

• Nobody approves their own work. 'Somebody other than the person who prepared this invoice must decide it.' The system compares the approver with the person who sent it for approval. Keep the roles separate so that the person who creates an invoice is also not the approver.
• An approval is tied to the content. If the total, date, due date, currency, customer, payer, bill-to or reason changes after approval, the record shows "(changed since)" and posting is refused: 'The document changed after it was approved. Send it for approval again.' If it changes while pending: 'The invoice changed after it was sent for approval. Send it again.'
• If nothing is waiting: 'Nothing is waiting for approval.'
• Switching Approval policies off removes the Approvals and Approval policies menus, and pending invoices post without approval.
• A policy's valid-from and valid-to dates apply: a policy that starts next month asks nothing of an invoice dated today.