Setting up rules for expense approval

If you wish to establish rules for expense approval in your fiscal, you can explore the different setup options available in Xena.

Approval rules

You decide how your approval rules should apply to voucher registration and order costs. The two types of approval can be configured independently, allowing you to tailor the approval flow to your company's needs.

Open the menu Setup > Ledger Setup > Approval Rules and click the Settings button.

The options are described below.

Voucher registration

1. Tick the field Vouchers must be approved by order responsible

2. Select the inbox where the voucher should be moved to after approval, for final financial posting

3. Click Save

This affects the following screens:

• Voucher registration: Order costs in voucher registration must be approved by the order responsible. It is possible to assign a fixed approver on the supplier, which will override the order responsible.
  ➡️ Voucher registration to sales orders and approval flow

Responsible persons

1. Tick the field Add secondary responsible on sales orders

2. Click Save

This affects the following screens:

• Voucher registration: Order costs in voucher registration must be approved by the order responsible and optionally a secondary responsible. In the example below, user Makni has approved the line, but it still needs to be approved by Brian Johansen.

➡️ Read more about order responsible

Cost registration

1. Tick the field Costs must be approved by order responsible

2. Optionally select a user who can always approve

3. Click Save

This affects the following screens:

• Cost registration: Order costs must be approved by the order responsible on the Approval tab. If you have selected a user who can always approve, this user can always approve on behalf of the order responsible — useful e.g. during holidays or absence.

Setting up authorisation

Authorisation is a feature that ensures vouchers above specific amount thresholds are approved by an authorised user before they can be paid. Once the authorisation rules are set up, vouchers — after financial posting — are automatically sent for approval to the user whose amount threshold matches or exceeds the voucher's total amount (excl. VAT).

A voucher can only be processed for payment once a user with the required authorisation has approved it. Until then, the voucher remains in voucher registration and will not appear in Purchase > Payment Overview. At the same time, the system ensures the voucher is financially posted on time, including VAT.

Note that it is not a requirement that an authorisation approver also has rights to perform financial posting.

To ensure an approver is always available, you should first create a rule for approving unlimited amounts:

1. Go to Setup > Ledger Setup > Approval Rules

2. Click Create

3. Select the user who should be able to approve vouchers without an amount limit

4. Leave the Max amount field empty (this indicates unlimited amount)

5. If only one user has unlimited approval, it is not necessary to specify an index number

Create additional authorisation rules

Once the basic authorisation setup is in place, you can create additional rules with specific amount thresholds. All amount thresholds are specified excl. VAT. If there are users who should not be able to approve vouchers, simply do not create authorisation rules for them.

Multiple users with the same amount threshold:
In this example, two users (User 1 and User 2) have been created with identical maximum approval amounts. To ensure a clear priority, both users have been assigned an index number:

• User 1 automatically receives vouchers where the total amount (excl. VAT) is between 5,000 and 50,000

• User 2 can also approve these vouchers, but only if they are manually moved to User 2's inbox

Handling absence:
If User 1 is on holiday and vouchers should instead be approved by User 2, you can temporarily reassign approvals by changing the index numbers for the two users.

Examples of approval flows

1: Approve order costs first, then financial posting and authorisation

1. Voucher is created: The voucher starts with Administrator, who creates order costs and selects the ledger account number, etc. Administrator clicks Send for approval, after which the voucher is automatically moved to the order's secondary responsible or order responsible's inbox.

2. Approval of order costs: The secondary responsible or order responsible opens Voucher Registration via Project > Dashboard > Awaiting approval > click Voucher. The order costs are approved by clicking Approve. If multiple approvers are required, the voucher is automatically forwarded to the next inbox. Note that order costs are not visible on the order until the voucher is finally posted.

3. Final financial posting: Once all order costs are approved, the voucher is automatically moved to the selected inbox under Setup > Ledger Setup > Approval Rules > Settings. The user posts the voucher by clicking Post. The approved order costs are now transferred to the order. The voucher disappears from the inbox and can also be found in Purchase > Payment Overview.

2: Financial posting first, then approve order costs and authorisation

1. Voucher is created and financially posted: The voucher starts with user Bookkeeper, who has authorisation up to 5,000. The user creates order costs, selects the ledger account number, and clicks Post. The voucher is now automatically moved to the order's secondary responsible or order responsible's inbox.

2. Approval of order costs: The secondary responsible or order responsible opens Voucher Registration via Project > Dashboard > Awaiting approval > click Voucher. The order costs are approved by clicking Approve. The approved order costs are now transferred to the order.

3. Approval via authorisation rules: Since the total amount exceeds 5,000 excl. VAT, the voucher is finally moved automatically to User 1, who has the closest authorisation rule. The voucher is already posted for both orders and finance, so neither order costs nor ledger accounts can be changed. User 1 approves the voucher by clicking Post. The voucher disappears from the inbox and can also be found in Purchase > Payment Overview.

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