Invoice Approval Rule - Involved Party Qualifier and Contact Profile Added

This feature adds additional criteria, Involved Party Qualifier and Contact Profile to the Invoice Approve Rule, allowing you to further refine the Invoice Approval Rule that will be used when approving invoices. You will find this feature particularly useful in configurations where you have a shared service for multiple customers configured in a single domain, and you have customers in that shared domain who require different criteria for invoice approvals - e.g., different Allowable Percents Above/Below or different Detail Tolerances. 

In the Invoice Approval Rule screen below the new Involved Party Qualifier and Contact Profile fields are shown.  This allows you to define a specific Involved Party Qualifier and Contract Profile for matching the Invoice Approval Ruler when the Invoice Approval Process is run.  The combination of Involved Party Qualifier and Contact Profile allows you to easily setup Invoice Approval Rules that apply to one or many of your customers in your shared domain.

Invoice Approval Rule UI

In the example below, an Invoice Approval Rule has been setup for the Involved Party Qualifier ID of Shipper and with a Contract Profile of Shipper, in this case there are two contacts  - Bob The Shipper and Customer 2.  This approval rule will be used for Invoice Approval when the defined criteria matches the Involved Parties  Qualifier of Shipper and either of the Contacts in the Contact Profile are on the Invoice.  For this example, the Allowable Amount Above and Below is  just 5.00 USD.

Sample Invoice Approval Rule Setup

Given the invoice below - with the involved Party Qualifier value of Shipper and Involved Party value of Bob The Shipper, the Approval Rule in the image above will match and will be the Invoice Approval Rule used.

Sample Invoice with Involved Party and Contact Defined

The total shipment and invoice amounts are provided below.  If the Amount to Pay for the first Base cost of 70.00 is increased to up to 74.00 USD, the invoice  be approved, as shown below.

Initial Approval Amounts

Increasing the Base amount by 4.00 USD to 74.00 USD will still allow the invoice to be approved - as shown below.

Base Cost for 70.00 Increased to 74.00 USD

After increasing the value and selecting Finish the invoice is approved.

Invoice Approved with Additional 4.00 USD Added Total Approved 497.15 USD - Original Invoice 493.15 USD

Using the same scenario as above, but this time with the amount of the first Base cost increased to 6.00 USD, the invoice will not be approved, as shown below..

Base Cost for 70.00 USD Increased to 76.00 USD

After increasing the value and selecting Finish, the invoice is not approved, as shown below.  In this case the Allowable Amount Above limit defined on the Invoice Approval Rule (5.00 USD) has been surpassed with the increase from 70.00 USD to 76.00 USD.

Invoice Not Approved

The same scenario will unfold for the Customer 2 contact included in the Contact Profile assigned to the Invoice Approval Rule.  In the example below, the Customer 2 is the Involved Party for the Invoice.

Customer 2 Assigned as Involved Party to Invoice

As before, the base cost is increased from 70.00 USD to 76.00 USD.

Base Cost Is Increased to 76.00 USD from 70.00 USD

After increasing the value and selecting Finish, the invoice is not approved, as shown below. Like before, the Allowable Amount Above limit defined on the Invoice Approval Rule has been surpassed with the increase from 70.00 USD to 76.00 USD.

Invoice Is Not Approved

In the example below, in the same domain, an Invoice Approval Rule has been setup for the Involved Party Qualifier ID of Bill-To and with a Contract Profile of Zippyshipping which contains one Contact ID Zippyshipping.  This rule will be used for Invoice Approval when the defined criteria matches the Involved Parties  - Qualifier and Contact on the Invoice.  In this case, the Allowable Amount Above and Below is 250.00 USD.  The important point here is that in a single domain (OOTB) for different combinations of Involved Party Qualifier and Contacts - you can configure different Involve Approval Rules based on this additional criteria and more precisely determine the rule that matches.

Sample Invoice Approval Rule Setup

The invoice below has the Involved Party Qualifier of Bill-to and the Contact Zipplyshipping - this criteria will be use to match the to the Invoice Approval Rule defined above.

Invoice With Involved Party Contact Bill-to and Zippyshipping as Contact

Similarly to the examples above, the first line Base cost will be increased from 70.00 USD to 320.00 USD - an increase of 250.00 USD which is the Allow Amount Above for the Invoice Approval Rule that will be used in this case.  The Invoice Approval Rule defined previously, with an Allowable Amount Above of only 5.00 USD is not being considered.

Base Cost Increased from 70.00 USD to 320.00 USD an Increase of 250.00 USD

Based on the matching Invoice Approval Rule, the invoice is approved with the additional 250.00 USD added - as shown below.

Approved Invoice with 250.00 USD Added

The same scenario as above, but in this case the amount is increased by 251.00 USD - over the Allow Amount Above of 250.00, in this case invoice is not approved.

Base Cost Increased from 70.00 USD to 321.00 USD an Increase of 251.00 USD

After increasing the value and selecting Finish, the invoice is not approved, as shown below. The rule set for the Allowable Amount Above limit defined on the Invoice Approval Rule has been exceeded.

Allowable Amount Above Exceeded - Invoice Approval Failed

In the example below, the Involved Party Qualifier and Contact have been removed from the invoice, in this scenario neither of Invoice Approval Rules defined above will be considered. 

Invoice with No Involved Party Qualifier or Contact

In this case the 70.00 USD Base mount is increased by 1000.00 USD, in this case - without the rules defined for Involved Party Qualifier and Contact, the available Invoice Approval Rule has an Allow Amount Above of 2000.00 USD.

Base Cost Increased by 1000.00 USD to 1070.00 USD

Based on the matching Invoice Approval Rule, the invoice is approved with the additional 1000.00 USD added - as shown below.

Invoice Approved with Additional 1000.00 USD

This feature allows you configure your Invoice Approval Rules so that the rule selected in a shared customer domain is selected considering an Involved Party Qualifier and Contact Information. The additional Invoice Approval Rule criteria, for Logistics Service Providers, provides an easy way to differentiate the Invoice Approval Rules considered for your different customers in a shared domain.

Steps to Enable

To take advantage of this new functionality, you will need to either create a new Invoice Approval Rule, or modify your existing Invoice Approval Rules to include the additional criteria of Involved Party Qualifier and Contact Profile.