Concur Invoice Approval Workflow Design to match current internal process

[mpaleja]

Hi,

My organisation is implementing Concur Invoice and we are trying to set up the invoice workflow to relate to our current internal processes and are wondering whether we should be using the Cost Object by Limit, Cost Object by Level or whether we should use another standard or custom route to implement this.

Currently, we have three levels:

0k-50k: Cost Center Owner
50k-100k: Department Head
100k+: Executive level

When an invoice is routed for approval in the workflow, if it is within the 0k-50k limit, it only requires the cost center owner to approve and then the invoice is fully approved and goes to the processor.

If the invoice is within the 50k-100k limit, it will need both the cost center owner as the first approver and then the department head as the second approver before it goes to the processor.

If the invoice is 100k or above, it will need the cost center owner as the first approver and the executive as the second approver (skipping the department head) before it goes to the processor.

We have been informed by our Concur implementers that with the cost object by limit approval, we cannot skip any approvers and an invoice would need to route to all 3 sets of approvers before processing which will not be favourable with our executive level, particularly for low level invoices.

We have also been informed that the cost object by level approval can skip approvers if needed, but we cannot devise this by a limit (which is our current process) but by title/category.

Please advise.

Many thanks in advance.

[KevinD]

@mpaleja I believe you could accomplish what you need to without using the Cost Object approval, but this would depend on whether your employees are cross charging from one cost center to another and/or one department to another. If they are cross charging to cost centers and/or departments they are not assigned to as their default, then it complicates things and Cost Object approval ends up being your best option since it will tell the system where to send the report. If they are not cross charging, then you could simply build in three workflow approval steps; one for the Cost Center head, one of the department head and one for the executive. You could then build in Skip Steps based on the amounts of the invoices. 

For low level invoices, which I take it you mean lower amounts, those would skip the Department and Executive approvals since they were approved by someone who has a high enough approval limit. So, while you were told that approvals cannot be skipped, that means if an invoice falls into the 100k or higher range, it would have to be approved by all three. However, I just spoke with a  couple of colleagues and they said that you can build skip steps in a workflow with Cost Object approval steps to send an invoice directly to the person who should approve it. For example, a 110k invoice can skip cost center and department approval and go directly to the Exec. 

I think what you heard from Concur about not skipping steps is in regards to Authorized Approvers, which steps cannot be skipped. With Cost Object approval, you can skip steps.