Vendor Bill Payment Approvals (Intacct)

note if you are interested in enabling this feature, please contact your santander treasury service sales officer the payment approvals feature implements a multi tiered approval workflow for payments made with the plugin, integrating the approval step directly into the erp this guide will walk you through setting up your approval workflows, ensuring that your payments are secure and properly authorized accessing payment approvals note to enable payment approvals, first update your plugin by following the guide on updating the plugin once updated, follow these steps to access the payment approvals feature log in to the portal to begin, an erp administrator or consultant with access to the portal needs to log in at https //sys fispan live/login select workflow once logged in, select the payment approvals tile you'll then be prompted to start creating your workflows there are two main types of approval workflows you can set up global workflow this is your default workflow it applies to all payment types and bank accounts dedicated workflow this workflow is more specific it applies to a particular bank account and selected payment types dedicated workflows always take priority over global workflows setting up your global workflow to set up a global workflow, please follow these steps create global workflow first, give your workflow a descriptive name this will help you easily identify it later here, you have the option to set thresholds a threshold is the minimum payment amount required to trigger a specific approval tier if a payment is less than the threshold amount, that approval tier will be skipped important each threshold amount must be equal to or greater than the previous tier's threshold note if your system supports multiple currencies for payments, you must first define a base currency for your workflow thresholds are only applied to payments in this base currency any payment submitted in a different currency will bypass the thresholds and automatically require approval from all tiers, as the system does not currently perform automatic currency conversion for this process tip best practice for multiple currencies if you make payments from bank accounts with different base currencies, we highly recommend creating dedicated workflows for those accounts this ensures that your thresholds are properly applied to payments in those specific currencies add approvers to workflow you'll need to add approvers for your workflow enter the user's erp email address exactly as it appears in their erp user record approvers will receive an email notification when a payment meets the required threshold the approver email must exactly match the email in the user’s erp record do not use an alternate or alias emails any mismatch may delay approvals and payment processing important to approve payments, users in an approval workflow need both an erp license and the necessary plugin permissions add multiple tiers add another tier for approval and additional approvers, if needed you can set up to three levels of approval at each level, you can add up to five potential approvers you can also decide how many individual approvals are required per tier eg tier 1 requires 2 approvals, tier 2 requires 3 approvals, tier 3 requires 1 approval note important considerations no self approval you cannot approve your own payments keep this in mind if a single user frequently acts as both the payment creator and an approver best practice for approvers to avoid delays, we suggest avoid having a single approver in a tier adding more approvers than the required approvals (e g , include 4 approvers in a tier that requires 2 approvals) this ensures the process can continue even if someone is unavailable complete workflow once you're satisfied with your settings, click confirm selection you can now review your workflow click create workflow to confirm creation your global workflow is now active! all payments made through the plugin will now follow this approval process creating a dedicated workflow if you have specific bank accounts that need different approval workflows, you can create a dedicated workflow important setting up a dedicated workflow means it will take precedence over the global workflow for this specific bank account and payment rail(s), affecting all future payments create dedicated workflow from the payment approvals page, select click here to create a dedicated workflow first, enter a descriptive name for the workflow add source account you'll then choose the bank account for which these approval workflows will apply click confirm selection add payment methods next, select the payment rail(s) that will be part of this workflow payments not selected here will still be routed through your global workflow note this list displays all payment methods enabled for your entire account , not specific to individual bank accounts add approvers and tiers you can then set up the approval tiers, including thresholds, approvers, and the number of approvals required, just like with a global workflow when you're finished, click confirm selection complete workflow next, you will see an overview of your workflow to enable the workflow, click create workflow your dedicated workflow is now active! payments made with the selected combination of payment rails and bank accounts will now be routed through this workflow going forward editing or deleting workflows you can edit or delete a workflow, but only if there are no pending approvals for that workflow this prevents any confusion or errors with payments currently going through the approval process in the event you need to edit a workflow with associated open payments, process or cancel any outstanding payments associated with the workflow editing a workflow select a workflow to edit click on the workflow you want to edit in the table an overview of the workflow will appear next, click edit workflow edit workflow make your desired changes to the workflow verify your changes and then click save confirm changes you will then see a confirmation of the changes the updated workflow will now apply to all new payments deleting a workflow select a workflow to delete click on the workflow you want to delete click delete workflow confirm deletion next, confirm you would like to proceed with the deletion payments will no longer use this workflow if you still have a global workflow active, these payments will now be routed through your global workflow instead you will then see a confirmation that the workflow was successfully deleted intacct required permissions to get access to the payment approvals page, please have your erp administrator navigate to the role for your bank's plugin and add permissions for payment approvals payment approval request page after creating vendor bill payment approval workflows, once you initiate a payment from within your plugin, its status transitions to waiting for approval if the payment amount falls within a specific approval threshold, the designated approvers will receive an email notification with the subject "action required payments requiring approval" approvers can review these payments from the payment approval request page, which serves as the central hub for all payments initiated for your company that are awaiting approval the approvals page table provides a comprehensive overview of each payment request, with the following key details request date the precise date when the payment was initiated within the plugin user/requested by the name of the user who submitted the payment request payment request id a unique internal identifier generated by the plugin for this payment this id is crucial for any troubleshooting or support inquiries payee the name of the recipient (vendor or entity) to whom the payment is being sent amount the total value of the payment, after any applicable discounts or credits have been subtracted number of bills the count of individual bills that are covered by this specific payment request payment type the chosen method for distributing the funds (e g , ach, check) source account the bank account from which the payment funds will be drawn expected pay date the date on which the payment is projected to be sent out to the recipient, assuming it receives final approval approval progress a tracker that provides context for where a payment is within the approval process to help you quickly find specific payment requests, the approvals page provides filtering capabilities click on the filters button to open the filter panel on the right side of the screen you can filter by amount, payment request id, payment type, request date, source account, or vendor individual approvals or rejections for more granular control, or to provide unique rejection reasons, you can process payments individually to approve or reject individual payments, simply click on the specific payment row in the approvals table this will open a detailed dialogue for that payment you can navigate through other payments directly from this dialogue using the provided navigation arrows, without returning to the main table to approve an individual payment approve payment click the approve button you will then see an approval confirmation screen this screen includes a countdown timer that will automatically advance you to the next payment in your list (if any) or close the dialogue you can also click the navigation arrow to move to the next payment more quickly complete approval if your approval is part of a multi tier workflow, the payment will proceed to the next required approver(s) to reject an individual payment reject payment click the reject button provide rejection reason you will be prompted to provide a rejection reason once you have entered the reason, click yes, reject payment confirm rejection you will then see a rejection confirmation screen similar to the approval confirmation, this screen includes a countdown timer to automatically advance you or an arrow to move faster if a payment is rejected, it will be voided within your erp system the associated bills will then reopen, becoming eligible for future payment the payment status on the payment history page will change to cancelled bulk approving or rejecting streamline your process by using bulk approvals and rejections for vendor bill payments view payments awaiting approval to quickly focus on payments awaiting your direct action, click the show assigned to me only filter in this filtered view, you can efficiently manage multiple payments select up to 1,000 payments for processing at once your selections are saved across all pages of the table, letting you choose payments from your entire list without losing your place to see the total amount of selected payments, grouped by currency, simply hover over the selected counter select payments select payments with the checkboxes once you have reviewed and selected the desired payments, you can choose to approve or reject them using the corresponding buttons bulk approve or reject after making your selection ( approve or reject ), you will be presented with a summary of your chosen payments for a final confirmation review if you selected reject , you will be prompted to provide a mandatory rejection reason please note that this reason will apply to all selected payments if you require different rejection reasons for individual payments, you must process them separately once you confirm your selection, the system will begin processing your approvals or rejections if a payment is rejected, it will be voided within your erp system the associated bills will then reopen, becoming eligible for future payment the payment status on the payment history page will change to cancelled if your approval is part of a multi tier workflow, the payment will proceed to the next required approver(s) however, if your approval is the final one required, the payment will be sent for processing and will be transmitted to your bank payment approval history page the approval history page provides a comprehensive record of all payments that have reached a definitive status either rejected or approved payments still pending further approval will not appear here; they remain visible on the approval requests table this page offers a detailed overview of past payment activities, including status the final outcome of the payment (e g , approved, rejected, paid) payee the name of the recipient of the payment payment request id the unique internal plugin identifier for the payment, useful for reference number of bills the count of bills included in the payment payment type the method used for the payment (e g , ach, wire) amount the total amount of the payment after any discounts or credits source account the bank account from which the payment originated user/requested by the user who initially requested the payment request date the date the payment request was initiated total approvers the total number of users who took action (approved or rejected) on the payment decision date the date on which the final action (either final approval or rejection) for the payment was completed to view more details about a request, you can click view and see the following date and time when the approval or rejection occurred user the individual who approved or rejected the request reason any comments or explanations provided for the decision payment approvals history export you can export the approvals history for record keeping or analysis the export file includes date the date the payment was processed vendor name the name of the recipient of the payment total bills the number of individual bills included in the payment amount the total value of the payment currency the currency in which the payment was made (e g , usd, cad) payment method how the payment was made (e g , ach, check, wire) submitted by the user who initiated the payment request reviewed by the email addresses of all users who participated in the approval or rejection process this gives you a clear view of the approval chain approval/rejection time the exact date and time when the final decision (either approval or rejection) was made by the last reviewer status the final outcome of the payment request, clearly indicating whether it was approved or rejected reason for rejection if a payment request was rejected, this field will provide the specific reason this field will be empty for approved payments to generate this export, click the export button on the approvals history page faqs i have a user who has access to the portal, but i do not want to have permission to edit my approval workflows what can i do? need to adjust user access to workflows (e g , view only or no access)? please contact with the user emails for assistance what if i accidentally reject a payment? rejection is a terminal action if a payment is rejected in error, the initiating user will need to resubmit the request