Specific Approvals: Sales Invoices

Many businesses use sales orders as the approval point for sales documents. Some businesses may need to review and approve other sales documents. For example, a company may need to approve sales invoices entered directly at the point of sale on the Invoices (SO303000) form. Other companies may consolidate lines from multiple sales orders into a single invoice and configure approval of the amount for all lines or specific items in this document.

In MYOB Acumatica, you can configure the approval functionality for sales invoices created on the Invoices (SO303000) form. You can also configure the approval of other types of documents that are created on this form, such as credit memos, debit memos, cash sales, or cash returns.

Configuration of Approval

To implement approvals for documents of any type that are created on the Invoices (SO303000) form, you perform the following general steps:

1. You identify the employees who will be reviewing documents of specific types and plan the workgroups that will include these employees. You also review your organization's hierarchy of workgroups on the Company Tree (EP204061) form and add any new workgroups needed for approvals.

   For more information on the company tree and workgroups, see Company Tree and Workgroups.

2. You make sure that the Approval Workflow feature is enabled on the Enable/Disable Features (CS100000) form.
3. On the Assignment and Approval Maps (EP205000) form, you create an approval map (or multiple maps, if needed) for the Invoice entity type, as described in Approval Configuration: Approval Maps.
   Note: For this entity type, the system provides the same entities and fields for the configuration of conditions on the Conditions tab of the Approval Maps (EP205015) form as it does when you select Invoices and Memos in the Entity Type box.

   Some of the fields in the drop-down list of the Field Name column (for example, Default Retainage Percent) for the Invoices entity type have corresponding UI elements that are displayed only on the Invoices and Memos (AR301000) form. If the approval conditions for the Invoices entity type are based on these fields, the approver of the document will not be able to view the values in the UI elements corresponding to these fields on the Invoices form.

4. Optional: You create email templates to notify approvers about new documents on the Invoices form that are pending approval. You can create email templates by using the Email Templates (SM204003) form.

   For more information on email templates, see Email Templates.

5. On the Approval tab of the Sales Orders Preferences (SO101000) form, you do the following:
   1. You add a row to the Invoices table and select the Active check box for this row.
   2. In the Type column, you select the type of the document that requires approval.
   3. In the Approval Map column, you specify the approval map that has been created.
      Note: You can use the same approval map for any number of document types by adding a row to the table and selecting the approval map in the Approval Map column.
   4. Optional: In the Pending Approval Notification column, you select the email template to be used for these notification emails.

Once you have set up the approval functionality, documents on the Invoices form that meet the conditions for approval cannot be released until they have been approved by the assigned approvers.

The Approval Workflow

If approvals have been activated for a type of a document on the Approval tab of the Sales Orders Preferences (SO101000) form, the system assigns the On Hold status to all new documents of this type on the Invoices (SO303000) form. It assigns the status to these documents regardless of the following:

• The state of the Hold Invoices on Entry check box on the Order Types (SO201000) form for the order type of the sales order for which the system has generated the invoice
• The state of the Hold Documents on Entry check box on the Accounts Receivable Preferences (AR101000) form

If the document does not require approval based on the conditions specified in the approval map, after you remove it from hold, the system automatically approves it and assigns the next status according to the document's workflow. If the document requires approval, the system assigns the Pending Approval status to it. Also, on the form toolbar, the Approve and Reject buttons appear. You can do one of the following:

• Approve the document: If you click Approve, the system assigns the document the next status according to the document's workflow.

  After you approve a document on the Invoices form, you can edit only the following settings of this document: the value in the Currency box in the Summary area, the values in the Payment Method and Cash Account boxes on the Financial tab, and the values in the Amount Paid and Write-Off Amount columns on the Applications tab.

• Reject the document. If you click Reject, the system assigns the document the Rejected status.

  You can then put the document on hold and edit its details. Once you remove it from hold, the document will be assigned the Pending Approval status again if it still requires approval.

  Documents that have been rejected do not prevent the closing of the financial period in which they are dated. If a sales invoice created from a sales order is rejected, the link to the rejected invoice remains in the related sales order on the Shipments tab of the Sales Orders (SO301000) form, and the system displays a warning message about the invoice's rejected status.