Create Journal Approval Rules

You can use BPM Worklist to configure journal approval rules.

For example, you can create journal approval rules that automatically approve a journal batch, or that route the batch for approval based on the ledger and journal amounts.

This procedure creates the following approval rules:

• When the largest journal amount in a batch is more than 500, and less than 10,000, the batch requires one level of supervisory approval.

• When the largest journal amount is 10,000 or more, two levels of supervisory approval are required.

• If the largest journal amount in a batch is 500 or less, the batch doesn't require approval or it's automatically approved.

Create a Rule That Requires One Level of Supervisory Approval

1. In the Global menu, click the Notifications icon and select More Details. If you're using the news feed default home page layout, then select Show All and click Worklist.

2. Select Financials. The Business Process Management Worklist application page opens.

3. Click your user name and select Administration. You can manage the journal approval rules only if you have administrator access.

4. Click the Task Configuration tab.

5. From the Tasks to be configured pane, select the FinGLJournalApproval task.

6. Click Edit task to create the rules.

7. Click the Assignees tab. The Assignees page shows the participant tree. A participant is a user or set of users in the approval assignment and routing definition. The journal approval task displays three predefined participants. Typically you use only one or two participants, but have the flexibility to add more participants to meet more complex approval requirements. Each participant is associated with one rule set, and a rule set can have one or more approval rules.

8. On the Supervisory Journal Approver participant, click Go to rule.

9. Click the Expand icon on the Manager Approval Rule. That's the default predefined approval rule. If a journal's ledger and source are enabled for approval, the rule is configured to send that journal for one level of approval to the supervisor of the person who submitted the journal for approval.

10. Click the Show Advanced Settings icon.

11. Click in the Active check box to deselect it. When this check box is cleared, the approval routing process doesn't use the rule.

12. Click the Add Rule icon.

13. In the Name field, enter the name of the rule: Between 500 and 10000.

14. Click Expand. Each rule defines the conditions for when the journal batch should be approved and by whom.

    Note: The IF component evaluates the journal based on batch, journal, or journal line-level attributes. The THEN component determines who the approval should be routed to.

15. In the IF section, click the Left Value icon. The Condition Browser window opens.

16. Click the Expand icon on the Maximum Amount Journal folder.

17. Click the Name attribute, which represents the ledger name.

18. Click OK. The Condition Browser window closes and the attribute name is populated in the Left Value field.

19. In the Right Value field, enter the name of the ledger in quotation marks, for example, enter "Vision Corporation".

    Note: The first condition uses the operator named is. This operator compares the two values.

20. Click the Add simple test icon from the list to add another condition.

21. Click the Left Value icon. The Condition Browser window opens.

22. Expand the Maximum Journal Amount folder and select the Maximum Accounted Amount Credit attribute. This attribute stores the maximum accounted credit amount across all journals in the batch.

23. Click OK. The Condition Browser window closes.

24. In the second condition, click in the Operator field and select the operator named between.

25. Click the Right Value icon. The Right Operand window opens.

26. In the Operand 1 field, enter the lower limit as 500.

27. In the Operand 2 field, enter the upper limit as 10000.

28. Click OK. The Right Operand window closes.

29. To configure the action to send the journal batch for one level of supervisory approval, click the Add Action icon in the THEN section.

30. Select Add Approver and select Supervisory.

    Note: The Supervisory list builder generates the list of approvers by moving up the supervisory hierarchy that's set up in the Human Resources application. Specify the number of approvers, the first approver, and the highest possible approver.

31. To route the journal batch for one level of supervisory approval, in the Number of levels field, enter 1.

32. In the Starting Participant field, click Search. The Add Hierarchy Participant window opens and the Get Manager option is selected by default.

33. For this rule, the starting participant or first approver, is going to be the manager of the person who submits the journal batch for approval. In the Reference User field, enter Task.Workflow Submitter.

34. Click OK. The Add Hierarchy Participant window closes.

35. In the Top Participant field, click Search. The Add Hierarchy Participant window opens.

    Note: The top participant is the last user in the approval hierarchy. The list builder continues to add users to the approvers list from the supervisory hierarchy of the first approver, until the number of levels is met, or the top participant is reached.

36. Click the Get User button.

37. In the Reference User field, enter the sign in name of the top participant within quotation marks.

38. Click OK. The Add Hierarchy Participant window closes.

39. From the Tasks to be configured pane, click Save. The Enter Comments window opens.

40. Click OK. The Enter Comments window closes and a message appears stating that the rule has been saved.

41. Click OK.

Create a Rule That Requires Two Levels of Supervisory Approval

Create a rule for the same ledger requiring two levels of supervisory approval if the largest journal amount is 10,000 or more. Copy the first rule and make changes for this second rule.

1. Click the Assignees tab.

2. Select the first rule.

3. Click the list on the Cut icon and select Copy.

4. Click the list on the Cut icon and select Paste. The second rule appears after the first rule.

5. In the Name field for the second rule, enter Greater than 10000.

6. Click Expand.

7. The first condition in the IF section that checks for the ledger, stays the same. Change the operator of the second condition to same or more than.

8. In the Right Value field, enter 10000.

9. In the THEN section, in the Number of levels field, enter 2.

10. Click Collapse. The second approval rule is complete.

Create a Rule That Automatically Approves Journals

Create the rule that automatically approves journals that are 500 or less for a specific ledger. The rule must also ensure that journal batches for all other ledgers are automatically approved as well.

Caution: It's very important that the rules in a rule set cover all conditions and are collectively exhaustive. If not, errors might occur.

1. Select the first rule.

2. Click the list on the Cut icon and select Copy.

3. Click the list on the Cut icon and select Paste. The third rule appears after the first rule.

4. Click in the Rule Name field and rename the third rule to Less than 500.

5. Click the Expand icon to open the new rule.

6. Create a condition for journals 500 or less in the specified ledger by first grouping the two existing conditions together. In the IF section, click both conditions to select them.

7. Click the Surround selected tests with parenthesis icon. Both conditions are now enclosed within a set of parentheses.

8. Click in the Operator field of the second condition and select same or less than from the list. The amount automatically changes to 500.

9. Now add another condition to cover all of the other batches that don't have journals for the specified ledger. Click the Add simple test icon. A third condition row is added after the two grouped conditions.

10. Since this new condition is mutually exclusive to the grouped conditions, click the connector to change it from and to or.

11. Click the Left Value icon. The Condition Browser window opens.

12. Expand the Maximum Journal Amount folder and select Name.

13. Click OK. The Condition Browser window closes.

14. Click in the Operator field and select the operator named isn't.

15. In the Right Value field, enter the name of the ledger in quotation marks.

16. Now set up the automatic approval. The Supervisory list builder has two parameters that override the supervisory approval and return a preconfigured approval action. In the THEN section, click in the Auto Action Enabled field, and select True.

17. In the Auto Action field, enter "APPROVE". Include the quotation marks.

18. Collapse the rule.

    You have now defined three rules that meet the business requirements and are collectively exhaustive. All journal batches satisfy the conditions in at least one of the three rules and are routed for approval accordingly. If a journal batch doesn't satisfy the conditions in at least one rule within a rule set, the rule evaluation process would fail with errors.

19. Deploy the rules so that they can be used. On the Tasks to be configured toolbar, click the Commit Task icon. The Enter Comments window opens.

20. Click OK. The Enter Comments window closes and a message appears stating that the data rule has been saved and committed.

21. Click OK.

After journal approval is enabled, journal batches being posted are submitted for approval based on these rules.