Approve/Deny Accounts Payables Page

Use this page to search for and list the payable items you want to process for approval. Once records are listed, you can:

Approve or deny a single payable item.
Approve or deny all payable items found in your search.
Generate the Accounts Payable Approval/Denial report for the records listed.
Display the Payable Detail page to approve or deny a payable's individual line items. In this page, you also flag an item for correction or add comments to an item.
For an overview of the approval process, refer to Approval Processing and Batch Payables.

Menu Path: Fund Accounting > Entry & Processing > Payable Entry > Approve/Deny Payables

Action Bar Items

The Approve/Deny Accounts Payable page's Action Bar displays the following items:

Approve	Approves a selected payable item at your approval group level. The system also does account approval if applicable.
Deny	Denies a selected payable item at your approval group level. The system also does account-based denial if applicable.
Approve All	Approves all items at your approval group level for all records listed. The system also does account approval if applicable.
Deny All	Denies all items at your approval group level for all records listed. The system also does account-based denial if applicable.
Clear	Clears the approval action taken for a selected payable item. The record's Status field changes back to Open.

Using the Approve Or Deny Accounts Payables Page

Though the Approve/Deny Accounts Payables page is designed for ease of use, there are a few behind-the-scenes details that you should know to fully understand the approval process.

Selecting Payable Records

When you use the Approve/Deny Payables option, you first enter selection criteria to display the payable items you want to review. In addition to your criteria, the system uses the following parameters to determine the records you are eligible to view and process:

The system checks your username against records in the Accounts Payable Approval table and the Accounts Payable Account Approval table.
The system only retrieves records that have a status of Open for your username.
If you perform a search that fails to return a specific item you were expecting to see, consider the following:
The payable was denied by someone else from your approval group.
The payable has not been posted yet by the payable entrant.
The payable received approval from all required members of your approval group.
The payable requires correction, in which case, it needs to be updated and re-posted by the entrant.
You already processed the item.

Summary Listing vs. Payable Detail

The Approve/Deny Accounts Payables page's list section shows summary information for the payables retrieved by your search. The listing provides a dollar amount for each row. The amount reflects the total for all approval records that share the same combination of purchase order number, item number, invoice number, and vendor code.

If you process approval or denial of an item in the Approve/Deny Accounts Payables page, your decision affects all of the individual accounting distribution records summarized in the item's total amount.

To review all records included in the summary item, select the appropriate row, and then click OK to display the Payable Detail page. The page shows all accounting distribution records that make up the total payment. You can process a separate approval decision for each ledger account that was charged or use the Approve All or Deny All item to process all the records displayed.

For additional information, refer to Payable Detail Page.

Status Columns

The Approve/Deny Accounts Payables page's list section includes two Status columns on the far left which show the approval action for each listed payable. The first column (untitled) displays a graphic indicator when an approval action has been taken, while the main Status column displays the related code.

Following are descriptions of the settings that display in these columns:

Status	Description
Open	You have not taken an approval action yet for any of the payable's distribution items.
Approved	You approved all distribution items for the payable.
Denied	You denied all distribution items for the payable.
Review Detail	Either there are several distribution items that have different approval settings, or you marked an item for correction in the Payable Detail page.

Your approval actions are not applied until you click OK to save them in the Approve/Deny Accounts Payables page. After the actions are saved, The Accounts Payable Approval/Denial report generates and the Post Errors page displays. For additional details, refer to the Procedures section.

Displaying Accounts Payable Records for Approval Processing

Select Fund Accounting > Entry & Processing > Payable Entry > Approve/Deny Payables to display the Approve/Deny Accounts Payables page.
In the Approval Criteria fields, enter criteria identifying the payable records to display.
Click OK to display the records in the List section.
Review the payable records. Each record that displays meets the following conditions:
- You are eligible to approve/deny one or all of the payable's open distribution items.
- You have not yet approved or denied at least one of the payment's line items.

Processing Approvals in the Approve Or Deny Accounts Payables Page

The following procedure is used to approve or deny all payment items within a payable. For the procedure for processing payment items individually, refer to Payable Detail Page.

Complete the procedure for displaying accounts approval records.
To process a payable, select it, and then click one of the following. Consider Step 3 as an alternative.
- Approve - to approve the payable's distribution items and change the payment's Status to Approved.
- Deny - to deny the payable's distribution items and change the payment's Status to Denied.
- Clear - to cancel the previous action and change the payable's Status to Open.
- OK - to display the Payable Detail page and view more information on the payment's distribution items. For details, refer to Payable Detail Page.
To process all payables at once, click one of the following:
- Approve All - to approve all payments and change their Status fields to Approved.
- Deny All - to deny all payments and change their Status fields to Denied.
You can then can change the Status of individual payments using the actions in Step 2.
Review the Status of each listed payable. Keep the following in mind before continuing:
- If you are satisfied with the actions taken, proceed to Step 5.
- If you save the denial of a payable, it can no longer be accessed for approval by you or other members of your approval group.
- If a payable was marked for correction in the Payable Detail page and the record is saved, the record is taken out of the approval process until a payable entrant fixes the batch record and re-submits it for approval.
- If you updated a payable's items in the Payable Detail page, then the status Review Detail may display in the Approve/Deny Accounts Payables page. This means the payable contains items with different approval status designations. For example, you may have Denied one item and left another Open.
If needed, you can change a payable's Status back to Open by selecting the payable and clicking Clear.
When you finish updating the approvals, click OK to begin the posting process.
In the Begin Post? dialog, click Yes.
In the Print window, define the settings for the Accounts Payable Approval/Denial report.
- The report shows the approval actions taken for the listed records and indicates which records were posted and which were sent back to the batch file for correction.
- The report's default filename is postapappr.rpt.
Click OK. in the Print window. The system generates the report and processes the records as follows:
- The Status is updated for each distribution item you approved, denied, or marked for correction.
- Fully approved payable items are posted to Fund Accounting. Vendor checks now can be printed for these records.
- Items marked for correction are removed from the approval process. The appropriate payable entrants must correct their records and re-submit them for approval.
- If any data-related errors occur that prevent an item from posting, they are reported in the Post Errors page. Otherwise, the Post Errors page shows that the processing executed successfully.
In the Post Errors page, click OK to return to the Approve/Deny Accounts Payables page.

Fields

Following are descriptions of the Approve/Deny Accounts Payables page's Approval Criteria fields and the column headings in the List section.

Approval Criteria Fields

Use these fields to select the payments which await your review. The system retrieves records by searching in the Accounts Payable Approval and Account Approval tables.

Field	Description
Approval Criteria	Setting determining whether the system should return all payable items you are eligible to approve or if it should limit search results to items that have been approved at all levels lower than yours. Select one of the following: A - All Payables - Selects all payable items meeting your criteria that you are eligible to view and process. L - Approved at Lower Level - Selects only items approved by all levels lower than yours.
Required	Setting determining whether the system should retrieve only payable items that require your approval. Select the checkbox if you only want to see items that require your approval. Leave the checkbox blank to retrieve items where your approval is either required or optional.
PO Number	Number identifying the purchase order associated with a payable. To select all non-purchase order payments, you can enter a 0 (zero) in this field.
*Approval*	Code identifying the approval group for a payable. You can either enter criteria using search symbols or select a specific code from the drop-down list.
Vendor	Code identifying the vendor associated with a payable. You can enter criteria using search symbols or click Lookup to select a specific vendor code.
Due Date	Due date from a payable's vendor invoice. You can use search symbols to define a range of dates or click Calendar to select a specific calendar date.
Invoice	Number identifying the vendor invoice associated with a payable.
Control Number	Code identifying the batch file where a payable is stored. You can enter criteria using search symbols or select a specific code from the drop-down list.

List Section

Following are descriptions for the default column headings in the Approve/Deny Accounts Payables page's list section:

Field	Description
Status	Indicator showing the decision you made for a specific payable. The status setting reflects the collective action taken for all the payable's distribution line items. It does not take permanent effect until you complete the approval process by clicking OK in the Approve/Deny Accounts Payables page. Following are the possible settings: Open - You have not taken an approval action yet for any of the payable's distribution items. Approved - You approved all distribution items for the payable. Denied - You denied all distribution items for the payable. Review Detail - Either there are several distribution items for the payable that have different approval settings, or you marked one or more distributions items for correction in the Payable Detail page.
PO Number	Number identifying the purchase order number associated with the payable. For non-purchase order payments, the PO number is always 0 (zero).
Line	Purchase order line item number associated with a payable. For non-purchase order payments, the line item number is always 0 (zero).
Invoice	Number for the vendor invoice associated with the payable.
Vendor	Code identifying the vendor associated with the payable.
Due Date	Date when payment is due.
Amount	Total dollar amount for the payment. This amount reflects the sum of all distribution line items sharing the PO number, line item number, invoice number, and vendor code displayed. To view and work with these items individually, you can select the appropriate payable then click OK to display the Payable Detail page.
Description	Description for the service or commodity associated with the payable. For purchase order payments, this is generally the line item description.
Vendor Inactive Status	Indicates the current status of the vendor assigned to the payable. If the field is blank, the vendor is Active. If the field displays the code Inactive Vendor, the vendor has become inactive since the payable was issued. When a payable with an inactive vendor is approved and posted, a warning displays in the Accounts Payable Approval/Denial report, but the payable will be posted.