Access to view archived invoices for an approver

[monteypoo]

I have an approver that would like to view invoices that have been archived for their department. They work for a non-finance department so for obvious reasons we would not want to provide them with the invoice processor security role.

They are currently able to view the invoices through the "invoice list" screen, but this appears to only display invoices that the user has approved so if the approval was performed by another user within the same department these invoices are not shown. Additionally the invoice list screen appears to be fixed, the columns displayed cannot be customised or re-ordered and this is undesired.

I am wondering whether there is a way to assign the user with a security role that grants them access to view invoices for their entire department, based on the cost centre within their user configuration.

[PoojaKumatkar]

Hi @monteypoo ,

Can you please provide a screenshot of "invoice list" screen which you are talking about so that i will get clear idea. Currently im not able to understand you are talking about "approval" role screen or "invoice processor" role screen. 

If you could explains scenario with the help of some example and screenshot then it would be easy for me to understand your query and then i might be able to help you.

[KevinD]

@monteypoo The system isn't built to allow non-processor roles the ability to see what others are approving. However, you could build a Cognos report specifically for this person that shows all paid Invoices for the department they belong to. You could schedule this report to run on a recurring basis and have Cognos email the report directly to the user. 

Now the question is...if this is simply for one approver, is it worth the time and effort? Only you can answer that question and decide. I guess one more question is why is this one approver needing to see the entire department, but your other approvers don't need the same transparency? 

[monteypoo]

Hi Kevin, 

The scenario is quite straightforward and one I one imagine many businesses face.

The employee is head of our facilities management, and they have other staff reporting to them that authorise some of the lower value invoices. The head of the department would like to be able to view all invoice copies as there is data within the invoices that is not captured, and would therefore not be available in Cognos.

Examples would be things like:

Energy Consumption
Fuel Usage

More detailed data on water usage & consumption
CO2 emissions
Data on materials recycled or reused

Environmental impacts

Other departments do not need the same level of transparency as the requirements of a facilities management department are fairly unique, they have various regulations they need to comply with such as the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS).

Below I am including the list I'm talking about, it's accessed via approvals > invoices > change view to show all invoices.

[KevinD]

@monteypoo the first part of my last response still holds true. If an Invoice approver didn't approve an invoice, they won't be able to see it unless they were given the Invoice Processor role. You could give this person the Invoice Processor (Audit) permission and then go in as them and build a query to show only approved invoices from their department. Using the Preferences button you can set this query as that user's default query so when they access the Processor screen, that query runs (see screenshot). You would just need to explain this to the approver and let them know they shouldn't run any other queries on that screen. 

This is the closest option I can think of to allow for what you are asking at the level of detail you want.