Considerations for Approval Actions

If you're using the invoice approval workflow, you can start the approval process and handle approval exceptions on the Edit Invoice and Manage Invoices pages. You can select from the following actions:

• Initiate

• Withdraw

• Hold

• Force approve

• Resubmit

Initiate

This action starts the approval workflow and routes the invoice to the applicable approvers. The approval status on the invoice changes from Required to Initiated.

Withdraw

This action cancels all pending workflow processes and open notifications. The approval status on the invoice changes from Initiated to Withdrawn.

Hold

The Hold action delays the invoice approval. The approval status on the invoice changes from Required to Held from Approval. The invoice still requires approval before it can be paid, and you must initiate approval at a later time.

Force Approve

You may have to force approve an invoice, for example, if an invoice must be paid immediately. Before you can select this action, you must have the appropriate privileges and enable the Allow force approval option on the Manage Invoice Options page. The approval status on the invoice changes to Manually approved.

Note: The Accounts Payable Manager job role can force approve invoices.

Resubmit

You can resubmit an invoice for approval when:

• The approval status on the invoice is:

  • Rejected

  • Withdrawn

  • Held from approval

  • Resubmit for approval

• The approval status on the invoice is Workflow approved or Manually approved and at least one of the following invoice attributes has changed:

  • Invoice amount

  • Line amount

  • Distribution combination

  • Distribution set

  • Tax amount

  • Line added

  • Line canceled