Overview:
Review, approve, or reject invoices based on predefined workflows.

This article will walk you through what a typical invoice review process should look like.  We will be using the following signature authority flow.

This signature authority flow specifies three levels of review.  When the invoice is imported it will first be assigned to Paul Brown who will do the “Initial Review” step.  The first reviewer is required to review each billing item in the invoice.  Any subsequent reviewers can review each billing item as well or simply sign off on the total.  In the example flow, Paul Brown is required to review the invoice regardless of the total invoice amount.  Once Paul Brown approves the invoice, it will then be assigned to Patrick Green, but only if the total amount exceeds $10,000.  That is because Paul Brown was given the approval amount max of $10,000.  Patrick Green may then approve or reject the invoice.  If the invoice amount is greater than $15,000 then it will be assigned to Gregg Hart.  If Gregg Hart approves the invoice it will be fully approved.

Notifications:

When an actuals invoice is rejected the law firm will be notified via email.  The notification will specify the rejected invoice and any comments made on the rejected items or on the overall invoice.  This notification can be customized by navigating to the Tasks > Notifications page and editing the content of the “InvoiceReview: Rejected” notification.  Do not remove the “{Invoice.ReviewHTML}” form field or the useful rejection info will not be included in the email.

When an invoice is fully approved the law firm will be notified by email.

When a user has unreviewed invoices assigned to them they will receive a daily email with useful information and links.

First Reviewer:

The first reviewer is responsible for reviewing each individual billing item within the actuals invoice.  To do this, navigate to the Finances > Actuals Invoices page.  Any invoices that have your name in the “NextReviewer” column require your approval.

To review all the billing items in an invoice, you must click on it's row in the table and use the InvoiceReview page which is shown below.

In the example invoice, the forecast ($8,000) for PA320 has been exceeded by the actuals ($10,300).  This is a warning and can be ignored if the amounts are correct.

In the example case, it will be rejected since the forecast is accurate.  We will add a comment to the rejection of this billing item.

Once the item has been rejected the page will change in the following ways:

• The item rejection comment has been added to the pane on the right hand side of the page.  The small chain icon will highlight the billing item that the comment was added to.
• The billing item has a red rejection status with an icon that displays the rejection comment on hover.
• The “Reject” button under the “Invoice Actions” has been enabled.

Since the invoice contains a rejected item it cannot be approved.  You must reject the invoice and wait for a second revision to be uploaded for the review process to continue.

When the sample invoice is rejected a overall rejection comment can be added and final popup will show what emails (if any) received the invoice rejection notification.  The actuals invoices table will now appear as below.

A sample rejection email is below:

Once the invoice is fixed and re-imported it will update the existing invoice and appear as below.  The item that exceeded the PA320 forecast displays with a strikethrough text format to show that is has been deleted from the new invoice revision.  Any changes made to items that were not deleted will be displayed as red text.

Now that all items in the invoice are approved, the invoice can be overall approved.  Since Paul Brown's approval amount max is greater than the invoice amount, the invoice will be fully approved once he approves it.  The following email will be sent to the invoice's law firm to notify them that it has been fully approved. 

This is the end of the invoice approval process for our example invoice.

Adding Comments:

• To add an overall invoice comment, use the “Add Comment” button on the right hand side of the page within the comments section.
• To add a billing item specific comment, click the three dots on the right side of the the page within the billing item row.
• You can add a billing item rejection comment using the modal that appears after rejecting a billing item.
• You can add an optional invoice rejection comment using the modal that appears after rejecting an invoice.
• You can add an optional invoice approval comment using the modal that appears after approving an invoice.

Viewing Invoice History:

The “History” tab at the top of the page allows you to see high-level information for each file upload, invoice approval, and invoice rejection.  The event, who caused the event, the number of rejected billing items, total billing items, and invoice amounts at the time of the event are included.

Viewing Changes:

The “Changes” tab at the top of the page shows changes made during the most recent invoice import.  Clicking a row in this section will bring the selected billing item into view and highlight it.

You may also navigate between changes by using the control at the top of the invoice section.  Use the blue up and down arrows to navigate between changes to quickly review the invoice.  The change navigator also contains the number of approved, rejected, unreviewed, and total billing item counts.

Invoice Information:

The left hand side of the invoice review page contains information about the invoice such as the assigned signature authority flow, next reviewer, matter subtotals, invoice date, and invoice totals.