Company-Wide Invoice Approval Options

Audience: Accounting Manager and MineralTree Administrator

Summary: Reviews the invoice approval configuration options available on the MineralTree platform. 

This article covers the following topics:

• Overview of Global Rules
• Settings that Govern Approval Behavior
  • Invoice Approval Required Before Payment
  • Global Tiered Approval Rules
  • Invoice Approval Status
  • Bypass Invoice Approval (PO Matching Only)
• Settings that Govern Approver Abilities
  • Create and Edit Invoice Data
  • Approve Invoices Without Logging In

Overview of Global Rules

Companies often follow an invoice approval process prior to authorizing invoices for payment. Within MineralTree, companies have the ability to configure invoice approval routing rules according to internal requirements. The options reviewed below are global settings pertaining to how all the invoices will behave and the permissions that all Invoice Approvers themselves can possess. 

Four settings govern invoice approval behavior within MineralTree

1. If invoice approval is required prior to payment
2. Global Tiered approval rules based on dollar thresholds
3. Invoice approval status:
   • Changes to “approved” or moves to next tier when all approvers have approved
   • Changes to "approved" or moves to next tier when one approver has approved
4. (NetSuite & Intacct only) Invoice approval rules are bypassed or followed when an invoice is associated with a purchase order

Two settings govern invoice approvers abilities within MineralTree

1. Invoice approvers have the ability to create and edit invoice data
2. Invoice approvers have the ability to approve invoices without logging in

These rules are all set by a MineralTree Administrator by navigating to Company Settings and clicking on the Invoice Approval tab. 

Settings that Govern Approval Behavior

Invoice Approval Required Before Payment

If you require invoices to flow through approval rules prior to payment submission and authorization, navigate to Company Settings > Invoice Approval and check the box called Require invoice approval before payment.

Now if your invoice is not approved in accordance with your individual invoice approval rules, you will be prevented from submitting the invoice for payment. This rule does not apply to the global tiered rules discussed below, but rather the specific attribute rules discussed here.

Global Tiered Approval Rules

At the global level, companies set invoice approval thresholds that determine how many approvals an invoice needs based on the dollar amount. By default, companies are configured for one level of approval. Up to four levels of approval can be added, and users can specify the dollar thresholds at which each subsequent level is triggered. 

This setting is a global "safety net" which will remind the Accounting Manager on the invoice itself how many tiers of approval the company requires, but will not associate a person with a threshold unless a specific attribute rule is in place. To view the approval tiers required, the Accounting Manager should click on the "Show Approvers" button.

From here, the tiers will expand and the appropriate person can be selected or created from the recipient field. 

When an invoice requires more than one level of approval, invoice requests are sent sequentially, so that invoice approval requests are not sent to second level approvers until the first level approvers have reviewed and approved.

Invoice Approval Status

By default, the invoice is considered “approved” for that tier when at least one of the approvers assigned to an invoice has approved it. Companies can change this setting so that an invoice is considered approved only when all assigned approvers in that tier have reviewed and approved it. 

Ex. 1: 1 approval tier, approval by one

Ex. 2: 1 approval tier, approval by all

This setting is located in Company Settings > Invoice Approval. As with other global invoice approval settings, this configuration applies to all the invoices within your organization and cannot be changed for specific vendors. 

Bypass Invoice Approval (PO Matching Only)

This setting only applies to NetSuite and Intacct Auto-Purchase Order Match customers. It gives the opportunity to bypass invoice approval rules when a purchase order is in place. You can choose to bypass approval rules if the PO is considered a match, or if it is not considered a match. 

Settings that Govern Approver Abilities

Create and Edit Invoice Data

If you want your Invoice Approvers to have the ability to be able to edit the coding in the invoices and to be able to create invoices themselves, select the option noted below.

Please note that Invoice Approvers must be signed into MineralTree in order to do this and cannot change coding from the approval link from their email. 

Approve Invoices Without Logging In

If you want your Invoice Approvers to be able to quickly approve invoices without having to log in, this can be accomplished by selecting the checkbox below.

When selected, Invoice Approvers will receive an email notification that contains a link to the web page. When invoices are accessed this way, coding cannot be altered and approvers must log in to make any modifications. The link will only show you the most recent invoice approval request. If your approver has had previous requests, those will not show up unless they log in.