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Setting Up Document Approvals

You can set up the approval system to reflect the workflow of documents (a quote, an order, a blanket order, an invoice, a return order, or a credit memo) in your company. You can set limits as to what a user can approve (approval type: Approver), or you can require approval by the salesperson or purchaser responsible for the customer or vendor (approval type: Salesperson/Purchaser). You can also specify that you want to have the document approved by someone outside the 'normal' approval path (approval type: Additional Approver).

The following windows are used to set up the approval system: The Approval Setup, User Setup, Approval Templates, and Additional Approvers windows.

Document Approval setup includes these steps:

1. General Features Setup

2. On the General tab, in the Approval Setup window, you determine settings such as the administrator of the approval system, the formula for the date by which approvals must be made, and whether you want document rejections to be explained in a comment note.

   The administrator has access to all the setup functions and sets up the hierarchy of approvers and defines which sales and purchase documents should be approved.

   To set up the Document Approval System:

   1. Open the Approval Setup window.

   2. On the General tab, in the Due Date Formula field, enter the formula for the due date.

   3. In the Approval Administrator field, enter the user ID of the administrator.

   4. If you want the approver to add a comment when they reject a document, place a check mark in the Request Rejection Comment field.

    

3. Notifications Setup

4. You can define which events (an approval, a rejection, a cancellation or a delegation) should trigger an e-mail to the approvers notifying them that a document is awaiting their approval. This is done in the Approval Setup window.

   To set up the notifications system:

   1. Open the Approval Setup window.

   2. On the Notifications tab, place check marks in the fields to indicate which events should trigger a notification.

   If approvals have become overdue, you can send an overdue notification mail to the approvers. In the Last Run Date field, you can see when you last sent overdue notification mails.

   To send overdue notification mail:

   1. Open the Approval Setup window, and click the Notifications tab.

   2. Click Overdue and select Send Overdue Mails.

   The mail(s) are now sent to the approver(s). You can see a list of all overdue approvals in the Overdue Notification Entries window.

   To see a list of overdue notification mails:

   1. Open the Approval Setup window, and click the Notifications tab.

   2. Click Overdue and select Overdue Log Entries to open the Overdue Notification Entries window.

   Note

   You cannot edit the Overdue Notification Entries window.

    

5. User and Approver Setup

6. To set up the users involved in the approval process and to build a hierarchy of approvers, you use the Approval User Setup window. From this window you can also set amount limits for documents and delegate the approval process to a substitute if you are out of office.

   To set up the users involved in the approval process:

   1. In the Approval Setup window, click User Setup to open the Approval User Setup window.

   2. In the User ID field, enter the user IDs of the users that are involved in the approval process.

   3. In the Approver ID field, enter the IDs of the approvers.

   Note

   You can fill in the Salesperson/Purchaser Code field if the salesperson or a purchaser responsible for the customer or vendor needs to approve the document before it is sent.

    

7. Substitute Approvers Setup

8. To prevent documents from piling up in the system and becoming overdue, the approval requester or the approver can delegate an approval task to a substitute. You typically use this feature if an approver is out of office and is unable to approve documents before the due date. You can set this up in the Approval User Setup window.

   To reassign (delegate) the approval process to a substitute:

   1. Open the Approval Setup window and click User Setup to open the Approval User Setup window.

   2. In the Substitute field, enter the ID of the substitute.

    

9. Amount Limits Setup

10. You can set up the system to limit what a user can approve: some users may be allowed to approve any document, whereas others may only have approval authority for documents up to a maximum monetary amount. You can set up approvers to have limits (or no limits) for three different sets of documents: sales documents, purchase documents and (internal) purchase request documents (the purchase quote is used for this).

    You can set up monetary amount limits that apply to approvers in the Approval User Setup window:

    1. Open the Approval Setup window and click User Setup to open the Approval User Setup window.

    2. If there is an amount limit for sales documents, enter the amount in the Sales Amount Approval Limit field.

    3. If there is no amount limit for sales documents, place a check mark in the Unlimited Sales Approval field.

    4. Repeat steps 2 & 3 for purchase documents using the Purchase Amount Approval Limit and the Unlimited Purchase Approval fields respectively.

    5. Repeat steps 2 & 3 for purchase request documents using the Request Amount Approval Limit and the Unlimited Request Approval fields respectively.

     

11. Document Inclusions Setup

12. You can choose which type of sales or purchase document should be included in the approval process and which approval type and limit type to use.

    A set of templates have been provided that you can use to set up the documents. This is done in the Approval Templates window.

    To set up which documents you want to include in the approval process:

    1. Open the Approval Templates window.

    2. Select a template by highlighting a line.

    3. You can accept the default settings by enabling the template, or you can change the following settings if you want them to be different: Approval Code, Document Type, Approval Type, and Limit Type.

    4. If you want additional approvers, click Additional Appr. to open the Additional Approvers window. In this window you set up the additional approvers.

    Note

    When you have selected a template, remember to activate it by setting a check mark in the Enable field.

     

13. Additional Approvers Setup

14. You can set up additional approvers to either supplement or replace an existing approval path (approval type: Approver or approval type: Salesperson/Purchaser). An additional approver is, for example, someone in the Finance Department who must approve all purchase orders, or a sales manager who must approve all sales quotes before they are sent to the customer.

    You use the Additional Approvers window to set up the details of additional approvers:

    1. From the Approval Templates window, click Additional Appr. to open the Additional Approvers window.

    2. Select the additional approver in the Approver ID field.

    The program fills in the remaining fields (Limit Type, Approval Type, and Document Type).

    When you close the window, the program places a check mark in the Additional Approvers field in the Approval Templates window to indicate that an additional approver has been set up for this document type.

     

When you have completed the setup, you can run a test to see if the approval system works the way you intended it to. To run the test, click Approval User. in the Approval User Setup window.

Related Topics

About Document Approvals

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