This feature within the Purchase Ledger and the Cash Book, enables you to control the payment of purchase invoices by optionally requiring them to be approved for payment.

Before you can use this feature, you need to set the number of approvals required. This is done from the Purchase Ledger Options - Remittances tab card. Here you are able to select No Payment Approval (the default), One Stage Approval, or Two Stage Approval. The Suggested Payments list will be available even if you have selected No Payment Approval, but the Approve and Unapprove icons will not be active.

Then you need to set up the approvers:

These settings determine the number of approval stages the Payment of Invoices will require.

Print - determines whether a User can Print the Suggested Payments.

Disputed - determines whether a User can deal with Disputed Invoices.

If No Payment Approval is chosen, then the Invoices will appear in both of the Remittances list windows, and in the Suggested Payments list window, but in the latter, the Approve/ Unapprove icons will be greyed out, and will not be active. In this case Suggested Payments can be used to specify a suggested amount to pay, or to add a List Ref. to an Invoice.

When Purchase Invoices have been entered, select Suggested Payments to display the Suggested Payments selection window. This function can also be accessed through Cash Book - Suggested Payments. In the absence of any other selection criteria being entered, All Transactions will be displayed. However, if you wish to select Transactions on the basis of the level of approval they have reached you can do so from the drop down menu which includes the following options:

Depending on your approval level, some of these options may be disabled. For example, Stage One approvers can only view transactions that still require stage one approval and not those that are awaiting stage two approval. Having logged on as a User with the correct Approval level, select and list the Invoices. On this window on the right of each line is shown its approval status. To approve a line (or lines), select them by single clicking and entering a value in the Allocated Value box, or by double clicking, and then click on the Approve button.

To unapprove lines either double click on them, or single click on them and click on the Unapprove button.

The change in the approval status will be shown.

When an amount is entered into the Allocated value field, the Outstanding amount is updated (reduced) by the amount. If you wish, you can print a selective list of the currently displayed Invoice list, with various options. You can add a List Reference to selected Transactions by entering it in this box and clicking on its Set List Reference button. If a Transaction is given a new List Reference, then the old Reference is lost. The List Reference will be updated regardless of values being entered.

When you have made your selections, click on the OK button to update the invoices with the approvals you have given (or removed). Once the Invoices in the Suggested Payments list have reached the desired approval stage, they will appear in the Remittance - Cheques/BACS list and can be processed normally in these functions.

Sort By - This menu enables you to sort the list by Account Code, Date (Ascending or Descending), Audit No. and Reference or Outstanding Value (Ascending or Descending). The default when the window opens is Account code.