Field descriptions: Bill approvals

Enable bill approval

Turns on bill approval. Learn more about setting up bill approvals.

Email notifications

Enable approvers to receive email notifications when a bill is ready for their approval. Approvers then enable notifications for bill approvals on their Preferences page.

Approval policies and Manage

• Vendor-based Approval: Approval requests are sent to the bill approver that you specify for the vendor. Bills without assigned bill approvers are automatically approved. To set up, you must assign bill approvers on vendor records after adding the rule.
  
• Value Approval: Approval requests are sent based on the total bill amount. The approval amount for bills is set according to the approval amounts on the Value Approval Rule page. Requests are sent directly to the level in which the total bill amount falls.
• Value Approval - Transaction Department: Approval requests will be sent to the manager of the department selected in the bill. To set up, you must create a Value Approval Rule Set that determines who approves a bill based on amount.
• User Level: The approval request is routed to the specific user. Select the user in the User column.

Enable delegation

Allows approvers to delegate their approval responsibility to assigned delegates who can approve on their behalf.

Manage delegates

Appears when Enable delegation is selected. Select Manage to assign and manage delegate approvers for each of your approvers.

Unrestricted

Select a user who can terminate the rest of the approval cycle by approving or declining the bill.

As a best practice, select someone who has no lower-level approval responsibilities.

Bills created from customer refunds can participate in standard bill approval workflows. Admins can configure Accounts Payable to skip bill approvals for bills created from customer refunds.

Bills created from customer refunds cannot be recalled after submission for approval.

Learn more about customer refunds.

Rule type

Use the rule type column to create a sequence of approvals.

For example, you might want a bill to be approved first based on the department for the transaction and the amount. Then, you might want it approved by a specific user.

The rule types are:

• Vendor-based Approval: Approval requests are sent to the Bill approver selected on the vendor record. After adding this rule and saving your changes, you need to update vendor records to select approvers.
• Value Approval: Approval requests are sent based on the total bill amount. This value approval rule determines the levels of approval and approval amounts at each level. Approval requests are sent directly to the level in which the bill amount falls.
• Value Approval, Transaction Department: Approval requests are sent based on the department selected in the transaction and the total bill amount. The value approval rule for the department or the default value approval rule if the department does not have its own specific value approval rule, which are defined by the selected rule set, determine the number of approvers and their approval amount limits. Only one department can be selected per transaction for this rule type to function correctly.
• User Level: The approval request is routed to a specific user. Select the user from the dropdown list in the User column.

  For a user to appear in the list, the following must be true:

  • The user has any user type other than CRM
  • The user has Approve bills: List permissions in Accounts Payable
  • The user is not restricted to any entities, departments, or territories

Rule set

If you selected Value Approval - Transaction Department as a rule type, you must set up a rule set. A rule set enables you to define a collection of value approval rules for the Value Approval: Transaction Department rule type. A value approval rule defines the approvers you want and their approval amounts.

A rule set contains:

• Default value approval rules: The default value approval rules for any department that doesn’t have its own specific value approval rule. For example, you might not want to set up a rule for every department if your company has many departments. Instead, set up a default rule that will be used across all departments.
• Department-specific value approval rules: While one default value approval rule might work for the majority of your departments, other departments might need their own rules with different approvers and/or approval amounts. Use department-specific value approval rules for any departments that need their own specific rules.

Learn more about value approval rule sets and value approval rules.

Manage rule

This column is applicable when Value Approval is selected as the rule type. You can select Edit to add or edit the value approval rule used to route the approval requests. The approval rule for this rule type defines the number of levels of approval needed and the approval amounts for each level. The approvers for a specific level are those users who have permission for Bill Approvals and appropriate approval amount levels.

Learn more about the value approval rule for permission-based approvals.

Rule set name

The name of the rule set.

Rule type

This is a read-only field. Department dimension-based means that these value approval rules are based on transaction departments.

Approver

Select a user who will receive a approval request for the range of values on each line. For each approver, specify approvable amounts by the Value from and Value to fields.

For a user to appear in the list, the following must be true:

• The user has any user type other than CRM
• The user has Approve bills: List permissions in Accounts Payable
• The user is not restricted to any entities, departments, or territories

Learn more about assigning permissions.

The amounts that can be approved by each approver is the limit specified by Value from and Value to. For example, you might define the following three approvers: 

• Approver 1: Department Manager, $500 to $1,000
• Approver 2: Mark Johnson, $1,000.01 to $5,000
• Approver 3: Lucy Ruiz, $5,000.01 to no-maximum-limit

Depending on the total amount of the bill, here's how the approval routing would work:

• $100 total bill amount: Not routed because it's automatically posted.
• $2,500 total bill amount: Routed to Approver 2, Mark Johnson.
• $15,000 total bill amount: Routed to Approver 3, Lucy Ruiz.

Value from

The minimum amount that can be approved. Anything below the minimum amount will automatically post and skip any approvals.

Value to

The maximum amount that can be approved for a particular level.

Department ID and Department name

The ID and name of the department with its own value approval rule.

Description

The optional note that was entered for the department's value approval rule when the rule was added or edited.

Trash can icon

Select this icon to delete the value approval rule for the department.

Department ID

The department for the value approval rule.

Description

An optional note about the value approval rule.

Approver

Select a user who will receive approval requests for the range of values on each line. If the total bill amount is greater than the approver's Value to amount, the approver will still need to approve the bill before it can continue up the approval chain.

For a user to appear in the list, the following must be true:

• The user has any user type other than CRM
• The user has Approve bills: List permissions in Accounts Payable
• The user is not restricted to any entities, departments, or territories

Value from

The minimum amount that can be approved. If there are no approval levels below this one, then anything below the minimum amount will post automatically.

Value to

The maximum amount that the Approver can approve.

Transaction Department approvals work differently from Permission-based approvals. If there are multiple approval levels, the bill must proceed through each level of approvals through to the level with a Value to that either exceeds the bill amount or is open-ended.

Description

An optional note about the value approval rule.

Level

Specify how many levels of approval you want, the amounts that require approval, and the number of required approvers. Sage Intacct supports a maximum of 6 approval levels.

Value approval requests are sent directly to the approvers for the level in which the transaction amount falls.

Value from

The minimum amount that can be approved. Anything below the minimum amount will automatically post and skip any approvals.

Value to

The maximum amount that can be approved.

Minimum approvers

Specify the required number of approvers for the level. Bills can be approved by anyone with permission for that level of approval.