Invoice Approval Process
- Julie Brannon
General Background
In order to approve invoices in Alma you must have the “Invoice Manager” role.
Invoices are approved on the Waiting for approval screen. Each invoice has a row action item list icon (an ellipsis) that allows you to:
Edit: Make changes to and/or approve the invoice
Assign To: Send the invoice to the approval queue of a specific person
Set Back to Review: Send the invoice back to the processor for correction
Under the exclamation point “!” you can see any alerts that have been generated for the invoice. Some examples are:
Invoice contains vendor account which differs from one or more linked PO Lines
Some Invoice lines are not linked to PO lines
Alerts should be reviewed for items that need to be corrected:
If there are items to be corrected the invoice should be set back to review
If the alerts do not need to be addressed, the invoices can be approved
Invoice Life Cycle
In Review
This is the first status of the invoice after it is created (imported via EDI, imported from a vendor MARC record via the API, created from a Purchase order, or manually created).
Invoices retain this status while they are processed by acquisitions staff. An invoice may be returned to this status for correction when reviewed by Financial Services staff.
The system checks to ensure all required data is present. An alert pops up if not all data has been entered.
After an order specialist or other acquisitions staff have completed processing the invoice, use the Save and continue function to move the invoice to the tasks lists of invoice approvers.
Waiting for Approval
Invoice approvers review all invoices waiting for approval. Invoices are either sent back to In Review or approved.
Ready to Be Paid
Regular approved invoices stay at this status until the batch process to submit invoices to Accounts Payable runs (Monday - Friday at 2:00am, Eastern time).
Closed
Invoices with the “Prepaid” or “Internal” checkbox set to true are automatically set to Closed status immediately after approval.
Regular invoices reach this final status after the batch file is sent to Accounts Payable. Once the invoice is sent to Duke AP’s SAP R/4 system, the payment is made and all information related to the payment resides in SAP.
Waiting for Approval Invoices
To see invoices waiting for approval, go to Acquisitions >> Receiving and Invoicing >> Approve (Invoice). Additional options are available to search for specific invoices or all invoices for a vendor from the persistent search bar, if preferred.
Waiting for Approval invoices are separated into three tabs:
Assigned to Me: Invoices you have already viewed or that have been assigned to you.
Unassigned: Invoices that have not yet been assigned.
Assigned to Others: Invoices that other staff have viewed are reviewing.
Use the on-page search menu to find a specific invoice that is waiting for approval.
Click on the invoice number to pull up the invoice detail.
Checking Invoice Data
Confirm that the vendor record associated with the invoice is correct. Click on the Vendor Name for the invoice on the Waiting For Approval screen to open the vendor record.
Name on the summary tab should match the name on the vendor's invoice.
Payment Address on the Contact Information tab should match the remit address on the vendor's invoice.
Use the back arrow next to the Vendor Details screen to return to the Waiting for Approvals invoice list.
Select Edit from the row action item list icon. This opens the invoice for review.
Review the summary screen. Note that the invoice is in Pending Status. Confirm that the data on the summary tab matches the invoice, checking:
Total amount matches Total invoice lines amount
Invoice number matches invoice number on the vendor's invoice
Invoice date matches invoice date on the vendor's invoice
Vendor account selected is correct
Payment method is correct.
Invoices that will be sent to AP for payment should be marked Accounting Department.
Invoices that were pre-paid or paid outside of AP using a P-card should use Credit Card.
Invoices that require wire transfer should be marked Bank Transfer.
Review the Alerts tab (if the tab has a "dog ear," there are alerts) to confirm if any of the alerts require action.
Review the invoice lines by clicking the Invoice Lines tab. The display includes the line #, type, price, total price, status of each line, purchase description, fund which lists the fund codes, and PO line #. These should match the vendor's invoice.
Prorata checkbox: If additional charges such as shipping or a discount are listed as invoice lines, confirm that the prorata checkbox is turned off. When the prorata checkbox is turned on, the invoice export job in Alma extracts only the “Regular” type invoice lines and ignores the others (shipping, service charge, discount, etc), so the invoice total and lines won’t balance in the extract if that checkbox is left on when using an invoice line to add those charges.
Barcodes and Pay Immediately handling: After all of the invoice lines are confirmed, click on the Notes tab
Medical Center Library and Ford Library don’t currently use barcodes on invoices, but they will still need to use the Notes tabs when Pay Immediately special handling is needed to rush payment on an invoices. Open the Notes tab to create a note with the text ##PI##. The export process will find that string of text and send the special handling indicator to SAP.
For DUL and Law, add a note and enter the barcode value for this invoice followed by any special handling instructions using this convention (carried over from Aleph): 123456;##PI##. The note should begin with the barcode value without any other text/characters before the barcode.
Invoices with Errors
If you find incomplete or incorrect invoice information during the audit process that needs to be resolved by the department that created the invoice, you can send the invoice back to the submitter using the Need Additional Review button in the Edit Invoice screen:
Click on the Need Additional Review button at the top of the Invoice Details screen
Choose Disapproval Reason and enter a Disapproval Note
Click Confirm
Assign this to an operator to review
Search for this invoice in the invoice lines
Select the Assign to Contact from the list of operators
Select Send as e-mail
Click Assign To
The invoice will appear in the task list for the operator selected.
For invoices without errors needing additional processing, the invoice is now verified and ready to be sent to Duke AP for payment. Click Approve.
Accounting Department invoices will be sent to AP during the next export which runs nightly at 2:00am. At that time, they will be updated with a payment status of “Paid.”
Credit Card, Bank Transfer and Special Payment invoices will immediately be marked as closed on approval since they will not be submitted to AP for payment.
Gather information needed to email to Duke AP: To create a list of the invoices going to Duke AP in the next export run, go to Acquisitions > Receiving and Invoices > Ready to be paid. You can see the list of invoices and use the Export List button above the list to export it to Excel. The invoice amount is included in the exported report.
Exporting Invoices to Duke AP/SAP
The invoice export runs automatically overnight and creates separate files for each library to send to AP. It also generates a more detailed report for each library (PERKN, MED, LAW, FORD) listing each invoice with their vendor information, line item types and amounts, PO owner library, barcodes, etc.
Those reports are emailed to invoice approvers at each library.
If any errors are identified by the export process, those invoices with errors are set back to “In Review” in Alma and are sent to an error report for each library, also on the shared drive. To view the error reason, you can review the error report that was emailed to you or view the invoice in Alma and see the reason in the “Notes” tab. These error invoices require handling in Alma to review, correct the error (such as adding a barcode), and re-approve so they will be re-sent to Duke AP during the next scheduled export job.
Example errors:
The barcode is missing (for DUL and Law only)
The payment method is any value other than Accounting Department (such as Credit Card), but the prepaid and internal checkboxes on the invoice Summary tab are blank.
The PO line owner library is new in Alma - the external application needs to be updated when a new library used for orders is added to Alma so that it knows to group the new library invoices with PERKN.
After the export job completes and the transformation app evaluates the invoices, a file is created for import back into to Alma to update the payment status of each invoice that was extracted (step 7 in the diagram below).
Internal Invoice Approval
Two fields on the invoice Summary tab identify internal Invoices in Alma: The payment method value is Credit card, Special payment or Bank transfers (so, anything except “Accounting Department”) and either the “Prepaid” or “Internal copy” checkboxes are checked.
When reviewing an internal invoice, verify that the payment status is set to Paid. Once you approve the invoice it will be closed since it is already Paid.
Internal Invoice Report
A report is available in Analytics to view a list of internal invoices. There are separate reports for each library (DUL, Ford, Law, Med). The report is set up to prompt the user for a date range which will look for any internal invoices that were approved within that date range. Analytics data is refreshed from Alma every 24 hours, so invoices approved today will appear on the report tomorrow.
To view the report from Alma, go to Analytics > Shared with me, as shown here:
In your Analytics Object List, look for “Internal Invoice Report - Law (or DUL etc)”. On the right side of the window, select View full report, as shown below.
A new full screen window will open with a somewhat clunky looking date prompt.
Click on the empty field beside the text “Between” to open a calendar and select the “from” date value. Click OK. Repeat for the second date box to enter the “to” date value and click OK.
Once both dates are added, back on the full report run screen select OK to view the report filtered to those dates or click Reset to clear the date values.
The report list appears and you can export the results to Excel by using the Export option at the bottom of the list. Choose Export > Data > Excel to export the list into an editable worksheet without formatting (recommended), as shown in the second image below. The Excel sheet is sent to the downloads folder on your local C: drive.
Invoice Export Integration Diagram
The following diagram describes the integration with Duke AP in detail: