Using Approval
Approval is the Payables feature that performs two-, three-, or four-way matching. An invoice must pass Approval before you can pay or post the invoice. Approval reviews each invoice and places one or more matching holds on the invoice if the invoice does not meet your matching criteria. It also releases any existing matching holds if you adjust your invoice or purchase order to meet your matching criteria and current information on order, receipt and acceptance prices and quantities.
You must submit Approval for all invoices, not just matched invoices, since it also checks for distribution variances, tax variances, and exchange rate information. You can submit Approval online for an invoice or in batch for a group of invoices. See also: Approval.
2-way, 3-way, and 4-way Matching
When you match to a purchase order, Payables automatically checks that the total of PO_DISTRIBUTIONS.QUANTITY_ORDERED = AP_INVOICE_DISTRIBUTIONS.QUANTITY_INVOICED (2-way matching).
Payables only checks QUANTITY_RECEIVED (3-way matching) if the RECEIPT_REQUIRED_FLAG is set to Y and only checks QUANTITY_ACCEPTED (4-way matching) if the INSPECTION_REQUIRED_FLAG is set to Y.
Tax Matching
Payables only checks for tax name matching if the Payables option Validate PO Tax Name is enabled and the invoice has distributions with tax names.
Matching Tolerance
You can define percentage and amount tolerances for Matching quantities and price. Payables places a matching hold on an invoice only if the invoice quantity or price is greater than the purchasing quantity or price by more than your tolerance.
Matching Holds
When you submit Approval, Payables places a matching hold on a matched invoice (by inserting one or more rows in AP_HOLDS, one row for each type of hold for each invoice distribution) if:
- QUANTITY_BILLED > QUANTITY in PO_LINE_LOCATIONS (QTY ORD Hold)
- UNIT_PRICE in AP_INVOICE_DISTRIBUTIONS > PRICE_OVERRIDE in PO_LINE_LOCATIONS (PRICE Hold)
- QUANTITY_BILLED > QUANTITY_RECEIVED in PO_LINE_LOCATIONS (QTY REC Hold)
- QUANTITY_BILLED > QUANTITY_ACCEPTED in PO_LINE_LOCATIONS (QUALITY Hold)
- TAXABLE_FLAG = NO in PO_LINE_LOCATIONS, but there IS tax recorded on the invoice (TAX DIFFERENCE Hold)
- TAX_NAME in PO_LINE_LOCATIONS is not equal to VAT_CODE in AP_INVOICE_DISTRIBUTIONS (TAX DIFFERENCE Hold)
See also: Releasing Holds.
