Approving Bills With Bill.com Approval Process

Last week we spotlighted one of our favorite apps for online bill pay to vendors – Bill.com. We showed you their new interface along with this checklist with step-by-step instructions for users approving bills. Let’s take a closer look.

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The Bill.com approval process allows for multiple people within an organization to confirm bills are accurate, legitimate, and authorized for payment. This creates a separation of duties between users, a critical control for fraud prevention. When Bill.com users with the permission of “Approver” login, they land on the Approvals screen. Users with greater permission click the Approvals link on the left navigation menu to navigate to this screen.

The Approvals screen shows two tabs at the top. The Bill Approvals tab (default) displays a list of bills awaiting the user’s approval. There may be other bills assigned to the user that are not showing in the list. This happens when the approver ahead has not yet approved the bill.

Click on the top Invoice # to view the first bill’s document and transaction information in your queue. You’ll learn below how to use a slideshow approval process for reviewing subsequent bills in consecutive order.

Review the bill document received from the vendor and the transaction information (on the right-side panel) recorded to the general ledger for this bill. Confirm that all the information is accurate and that the purchase/expense is legitimate.

Optionally you can add notes. In the Notes section at the top of the right-side panel, read and/or add any relevant notes as needed. New notes will be seen by subsequent approvers and the payer. To tag another user in the note, type the @ sign followed directly by the username of the Bill.com user. This will send that user an email to call greater attention to the note.

To approve the bill, click the Approve button.

To skip the bill, click the arrows on the left or right side of the screen to move to the next bill in your queue. You may have a question about the bill and want to contact the vendor before you approve it. Or you may post a note for another Bill.com user in your organization to answer before you approve.

To Deny the bill, click the More actions link and then click Deny and then one of the 3 Deny options: Needs review, Duplicate bill, or Incorrect bill detail. Enter a note to explain to the bill creator why the bill was not approved. You may want the information contained in the Bill Details side panel (such as coding or amount, etc) to be changed before you approve. The bill creator will be notified the bill needs review and will see your note.

                                

To move to the next bill in your queue in a slideshow manner, click the arrows on the left and right of the screen.

Depending on the device you are using, if you’re zoomed in closer to the bill document and transaction than the screenshot above, it may be hard to see them.  Look for the same arrows on the left and right of the screen to move forward or backward consecutively through the bills awaiting approval in your queue.

Alternatively, you may click the X in the upper left corner to close the bill and return to the list of bills awaiting your approval. From this list, you may check the box and approve one or more bills without review.

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