What is vendor details approval?
Vendor details approval lets you require approval from one or more designated coworkers every time selected details on an existing vendor are changed, when a new vendor is created manually or from a document – and when a document from a vendor you have already added contains changed details.
New: You can now set up granular approval, so that only changes to the fields you select trigger a pending approval. Changes to fields you have not selected will not require approval and will go through automatically.
Examples of when a change can occur
Changes to vendor details can happen in several ways:
A coworker manually edits a vendor's details
A vendor's invoice contains different payment details than the last one
The details are updated via your ERP system
A new vendor is created manually or based on a document
With the granular setup, you do not have to require approval for every type of change. If, for example, you do not want to receive approval requests when only a vendor's website has changed, simply leave it out of your configuration.
1. Set up approval of vendor changes
To turn approval on and configure which fields are monitored, go to Settings > Advanced > Vendors.
Here you can:
Choose whether one of several coworkers has to approve changes, or whether all the selected coworkers have to approve
Choose exactly which vendor detail fields trigger an approval request – for example bank account number, address, CVR number (Danish company registration number), etc.
Fields you do not select are updated automatically without requiring approval.
Note: Only users with the Administrator or Owner role can be designated as approvers, as Contributors and Viewers do not have access to the Vendor tab.
2. Approving vendor changes
Once the setup is in place, an approval request is only created if one of the fields you have chosen to monitor is changed.
You will find the pending approvals under Bill Pay > Vendors > Pending approval.
The designated approvers can then review, approve or reject the changes on the Pending approval tab.
3. Actions for pending approvals
Depending on whether the approval concerns a change to an existing vendor or the creation of a new one, you have the following options:
Changes to an existing vendor:
Review the highlighted changes (marked in green) and approve them – this updates all pending and approved documents from that vendor
Reject the changes and keep the existing vendor details
New vendor created manually:
Approve or reject the new vendor
New vendor created from a document:
Approve or reject the new vendor
If you reject it, you have to assign the document to an existing vendor
Note: All documents that are approved or pending approval will also be updated when vendor details change.
4. Handling imported vendor changes
While you configure the approvers, you can also define how changes imported through integrations should be handled when a vendor already has pending approvals.
The three options are:
"Pending changes must be approved first, before imported changes can be added" Imported changes are only added for vendors without existing pending approvals. Vendors with pending approvals are not affected by the import.
"Pending changes are deleted, and all imported changes are added" Imported changes are added for all vendors. For vendors with pending approvals, those approvals are canceled and the imported changes take effect.
"Pending changes are deleted, and all imported changes are added for approval" New approval requests are created for all imported changes. Existing pending approvals are overwritten with an updated version.
Notifications for changes to vendor details are currently only supported by email, and not via the notification center or the mobile app.
No notifications are sent for changes imported from third-party systems (ERP systems).