16.5 Invoice Approval

Invoice approval is achieved through the use of Invoice Settlement Approval Plans which route invoices for approval, editing or force settlement, after the financial matching program has been run. As with other plan types, different combinations of document criteria (including invoice status) can be selected to ensure that invoices are appropriately approved.

Invoice Approval Process

1. User processes an invoice against a PECOS P2P purchase order.
2. Invoice is Matched (invoice, order and receipt details automatically compared and out of tolerance differences highlighted) and the invoice status is updated.
3. PECOS P2P looks at the users Approval Rule Group to find an Invoice Settlement Approval plan.
4. The invoice follows each task (step) in the plan in the order it was created.
5. Where task criterion is valid an activity is undertaken.
6. The owner of the activity is sent an action (e.g. invoice to action or eMail).
7. Where approval is required the invoice is sent to the owner of the approval activity.
8. Where approval is owned by a ‘Role’ PECOS P2P will return to the user’s Approval Rule Group to determine what user(s) is (are) filling the role.
9. The task owner will either: approve, force settle, edit, return or deactivate the invoice.
10. After approval has been performed the invoice will proceed through the remaining tasks: an activity undertaken each a time criterion is valid, or skipped if a criterion is not valid.
11. After completing the final task the invoice is approved and available for force settlement if necessary, (if it has not been force settled during the approval process) and processing for payment on the APExport interface.