Invoice Approvals

What is Invoice Approval?

When an invoice is processed it requires approval from the department prior to payment. All invoices are required to have a contact name or purchase order quoted. Which of these is provided determines the route the invoice takes, as detailed below:

• Workflow Contact Name provided
  Once the invoice is processed, a workflow will be sent to the quoted departmental contact. This will ask the department to approve via a budget code. Once we receive full approval, the invoice will release for payment within your payment terms.
  
  
• Purchase Order provided
  Once the invoice is processed, the system will try to validate against the purchase order.
  • If the purchase order is receipted, indicating that the items or services have been received, and not fully billed then the invoice will release for payment within your payment terms.
  • If the PO is not receipted, the department are sent a workflow notification to request them to approve the invoice for payment by receipting the PO.
  • If the PO is already billed then this could cause an overbill and a workflow is initiated to the department contact asking them to complete the required actions to release the invoice for payment.

If an invoice is awaiting approval, the service desk can support in chasing the relevant contacts for approval. You can contact the service desk via our contact form. The Finance Service Centre aims to respond to all enquiries within 5 days

Viewing a Copy of an Invoice 

The invoice should be included in the workflow mailer received by the approver. If you click into the notification bell and select the invoice approval you are querying, you should be able to view the invoice by opening the invoice attachment. If this does not work or you cannot see this option, click on options and add attachment. This will open a pop up for you to be able to download the invoice.

To view an invoice that has previously been approved, you can check the procure to pay dashboard to locate the invoice and view the payment status and/or download a copy of the invoice.

Changing the Workflow Recipient

Colleagues needing to change the workflow recipient during the initial or account coding approval stage can contact the service desk on 0300 30 30 222 or via our contact form. If a change to the workflow recipient for the cost centre manager level approval or for a purchase order approval (receipting/amending) is required then please contact us via our contact form, selecting Systems Admin in the Service Field.