Setting Up Invoice Approval Workflow

The Invoice Approval Workflow routes invoices to designated individuals for approval. This workflow uses the approval rules that you define in Oracle Approvals Management (AME) to determine if an invoice requires approval. If the entire invoice (document) or invoice lines require approval then the workflow routes the invoice according to the ordered list of approvers for approval. 

Invoice Approval Sequence

• The workflow begins by finding the first approver on the ordered list of approvers. 

• If the invoice lines or entire invoice require no approvers to approve them, then the invoice's approval status for all levels of the invoice is set to Not Required and the workflow program ends.

• If an invoice line has a first approver, then the workflow program sends an invoice approval request to the approver's e-mail or Oracle Workflow Notifications Worklist web page (or both). 

• The workflow process groups invoice lines by approver and sends one notification to each approver requesting approval for a line or set of lines.

• If that approver approves the invoice line or lines, the workflow program then looks for the next approver on the ordered list. If there is another approver, the workflow requests approval from that person. 

• The workflow continues processing invoice lines until all persons on the ordered list approve or reject their invoice lines.

• If an approver does not respond within the specified time period, the workflow removes the original notification from the approver's Notifications Worklist and sends a reminder notification to the approver. 

• If the approver still does not respond, then the workflow removes the reminder notification from that approver's Notifications Worklist and sends that person's manager an escalation notification.

• Lastly, if no response is received for the escalation notice and a time out has occurred, the system applies a new set of rules defined in AME. Those rules can consist of automatic approval or rejection of the line, or approval by a new set of approvers.

• Whenever an invoice line is approved or rejected, Payables updates the approval record of the invoice line, which you can review in the Invoice Lines Approval History window or the Invoice Approval History Status Report. 

• Once all invoice lines are approved, the entire invoice (document) is subject to document level approval. The workflow repeats steps 2 through 5 for the entire invoice. One exception is the system updates the Invoice Approval History window once the entire invoice is approved or rejected. 

• The system updates the appropriate invoice approval status when the approver approves or rejects the invoice line or entire invoice.

Approval Delegation

An approver can delegate approval requests, approval reminders, and escalated approval requests. If a notification is delegated to an approver outside the approval chain, the system continues with the original approval chain. 

For example, the approval chain consists of approvers A > B > C. Approver A delegates to approver X. Once approver X approves the invoice, the system notifies approver B. If the delegated approver does not respond within the time you specify, the system sends a reminder to the delegated approver. 

If the delegated approver still does not respond, the system rejects the invoice approval and does not escalate it. The Invoice History Approval and Invoice Lines Approval History windows track the approval process, including the delegated approvers' actions.

Invoice Approval Workflow Program

You can initiate the Invoice Approval Workflow Program in the following ways:

• Schedule regular submission of the Invoice Approval Workflow concurrent program

• Initiate the Invoice Approval Workflow Program from the Submit Request window

• Manually initiate the workflow by selecting one or more invoices in the Invoices window and then from the Invoice Actions window selecting Initiate Approval

Note: Invoice approval workflow is required for non-PO invoices created using the iSupplier Portal or the Payables Request Responsibility. The system initiates the approval process automatically when the invoices are submitted.

Setting Up the Invoice Approval Workflow

To set up the Invoice Approval Workflow:

• Install and set up Oracle Approvals Management (AME).

• In AME, you define the rules that the system uses to determine who the appropriate approvers are for an invoice or invoice line.

• If you use HR hierarchies to generate your lists of approvers in AME, then you need to provide logic so AME can identify the starting approver. You provide this logic by writing a dynamic usage query for the Transaction Requestor ID attribute owned by AME. 

• Your logic can identify a starting approver by using any system data such as project, descriptive flexfield, or requester on purchase order. For example, if you want your starting approver to be the person who requested a purchase order for an item, then your logic can derive that person's personid from the purchase order to which the distribution is matched. 

• Install the Oracle Workflow Builder client component program if you want to modify the Invoice Approval Workflow. 

• Set up approvers to receive notifications. You can set up Oracle Workflow Notification Mailer so the Invoice Approval Workflow Program can use e-mail, and your system administrator can grant approvers access to view invoice approval notifications from the Oracle Workflow Notification Worklist web page. 

• Complete additional Oracle Workflow setup steps. Specify the timeout value, the time period in which an approver needs to respond before sending a reminder notification or escalating the request to the approver's manager. 

• (Optional) Modify the Invoice Approval Workflow. For example, you can modify the message text that appears on your notifications. Also, the Exclude PO Matched Invoices rule is disabled by default, and you might want to enable it. 

• Consider one of the following modifications to handle cancelled invoices.

• In Oracle Workflow, modify the predefined workflow notifications to show the invoice status.

• In Oracle Approvals Management, set an AME rule to remove invoices from the approver's list when the status becomes Cancelled.

• Set the Use Invoice Approval Workflow, Allow Force Approval, and Approval Processing Sequence Payables options. 

• Set up a designated person who receives notification of workflow errors through the Oracle Workflow Default Error Process. We recommend that the person who receives AME error notifications should also receive Oracle Workflow process error notifications. 

• (Optional) In the Submit Request window, set up Invoice Approval Workflow to run regularly. 

• (Optional) Set up the Invoice Approval History Status report to run nightly to report on rejected invoices. See: Invoice Approval Status Report, Oracle Payables User's Guide.

Note

Ensure that the seeded agent listener service component named Workflow Deferred Agent Listener, provided by Oracle Workflow, is running for the WF_DEFERRED agent. 

This agent listener performs deferred processing including launching the Invoice Approval Workflow for all invoices with an approval status of Initiated. Use Oracle Applications Manager to schedule and manage the Workflow Deferred Agent Listener.