Documentation/ Checking the document header/ What to check before approving
What to check before approving
You do not have to go through every document. The system checks each one and flags the ones that want attention: reviewing is by exception, and that is what makes the volume manageable.
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The principle
Every document goes through the automatic checks. The ones that pass end up with the correct-checks status and can be approved without being opened, in a batch if you like. The rest carry a status saying exactly which check came back inconclusive.
Going through all of them one by one throws away the point of the system and buys you no safety: arithmetic checks do not get tired and do not get distracted.
The order to work in
- Filter by status to separate out what wants attention.
- Deal first with what changes the shape of the set: duplicates and documents waiting to be merged. There is no sense going over an invoice that is really two halves.
- Then go through the check warnings, document by document.
- Approve the rest in a batch.
- Send what you have approved.
What to check for each status
| Status | What to check | Usual cause |
|---|---|---|
| Review totals | Net, taxes and total in the header. | A discount taken off the total but never broken down, or an extra charge that was not read. |
| Review items sum | The lines: that they are all there with their amounts. | A line that was not read, a line discount, or carriage folded into the net. |
| Review VAT | The breakdown by tax rate. | A document with several rates, or with the equivalence surcharge. |
| Missing relevant fields | The fields highlighted on the record. | The document does not carry them: common on receipts and simplified invoices. |
| Duplicate document found | The document number and the original file of both records. | It came in twice by two routes, or two documents are legitimately alike. |
| Waiting to be merged | Whether the records are parts of one document. | A document of several pages that came in split. |
| Not an invoice | Whether the document belongs in that list. | It was uploaded from the wrong list. |
| Document is a credit note | The sign on the amounts. | The supplier prints the credit note without a minus sign. |
Four things always worth a look
Even on a clean document, four values can be wrong in a way no arithmetic check will catch, because the document agrees with itself:
- The issuer. A misidentified supplier drags the nominal account and the consolidation along with it.
- The sign, on credit notes. A credit note left positive adds instead of subtracting.
- The document date, which decides the accounting period.
- The document type: that it is in the list it belongs in.
What you do not need to check
- The amounts on a document whose checks came back correct. They have already been proved to agree with each other.
- The nominal accounts of regular suppliers, once your history has settled them.
- The data of a supplier with a correction rule in place.
Approving with a warning showing
A review status warns you; it does not block anything. A document can be approved with the warning showing, and sometimes that is the right thing to do: some invoices do not add up because that is how the supplier raised them. It is your decision, because you are the one who can hold it up against the original.
When the difference has to be taken up with somebody, the place to write it down is a query, not your memory.