A/P Approval Considerations

Here are the key considerations that I pose to my clients when we are designing a vendor bill approval workflow in NetSuite.  This is not to be confused with a vendor bill payment approval process.  An approval process on the vendor bill is for accepting P&L impact against a budget, validating GL coding, and matching against authorized purchase orders.  An approval process on the vendor bill payment is a cash disbursement control and typically is just approved by the CFO.

• How will the vendor bill be sourced in?  Manual entry, OCR, CSV import?
• Will the approval process be completed in a third-party application or in NetSuite?
• How many levels of approval do you want?
• Can multiple approvers approve simultaneously, or will it be sequential?
• Do all approvers have access to NetSuite, or will they approve in third-party or via email?
• Do you need a superapprover?
• Can approvers edit any fields on the vendor bill?
• Where will the PDF copy be retained?  Will it be attached to a NetSuite vendor bill record?
• How will you handle any unapproved bills when ready to close A/P during month end close?  Is it acceptable to accrue for all activity pending approval?
• What will be the process for placing a vendor bill in dispute?  What will be the process for removing dispute status?
• What info is required to provide an A/P analyst if vendor bill is rejected by an approver?
• Do you need 3 Way Match (3WM) automated logic built into the approval?
• Do you have partial receiving/partial billing that needs to be approved in the 3WM logic?