How to send bills for approvals, approve bills and schedule them for payment?

Table of Content 

1. Send Bills for Approvals

2. Approve bills

3. Schedule Bills for Payments

4. What if the payment is failed?


Send Bills for Approvals

Would like to approve bills? Follow the steps below:

1. From the 'Payables' drop-down arrow in the left navigation menu bar, select 'Bills'

2. On the Bills page, click on the bill you want to be paid and hit 'Send to approval'.

Make sure to click on the bill number, clicking on the customer name will take you to the customer timeline.

3. You also have the option to delete, send via email, or edit the bill before sending it for approval. Simply click on the three dots at the top right.

If you want to delete the bill because of incomplete information or other reasons, you can just write a comment, or you can go ahead and click on Skip comment

Important Note

When adding "@mentions" in the comments, if you want to send the notification to bill creator and bill viewer along with the mentioned user then check the box "Notify creators and Viewers".

  • Bill creator is the user who created the bill.
  • Bill viewers are:
    • All bill approvers are added as bill viewers
    • Default viewers from vendors are added as bill viewers
    • Anyone mentioned in the bill is added as a bill viewers
    • Rules can add bill viewers
    • If the user is a budget admin, then the user is a bill viewer

If you don't want bill viewers and creators to get notified and only want the person whom you have mentioned to get the comment, you need to untick the box "Notify creators and Viewers" before clicking on "Write Comment".

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You can also check the historical record of the bill in the Timeline. Here, you can even write a comment. 

4. Once you've sent the bills for approval, it will now appear on the 'Pending Approval' tab. Only team members who have permission to approve will see the bills added to this tab.

 


Approve Bill

5. Moving on, there are a couple of ways to approve the bills. 

a) Based on the approval policy assigned, the approvers will get notifications on WhatsApp or email




b) After clicking on the email or WA link, they will go to the “My Approval” section. They can either bulk approve bills.

Mass action approval by selecting the checkbox against the bills and clicking the 'Send for Approval' button. 

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c) Open them up and approve them one by one.

Once you open the bill, click on "Approve" to complete the process.

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Note:

Approvers and bill viewers can not edit the custom fields of a bill after it’s fully Approved.

 


Schedule Bill for Payment

Once the bill is approved, it will move to the scheduled tab. Based on the due date defined in the bill, the bills will be scheduled for payment.

To make sure the payout happens smoothly, don't forget to top up your Peakflo AP Wallet. Check out how to top up in the article "How to top-up your AP wallet?"


The bills will appear under the 'Paid' tab if the payments are successful, and unsuccessful payments will appear under the 'Failed' tab.

To keep your vendors in the loop, we will also send them an email to inform them that the payment is successful along with the receipt.

Screenshot 2024-03-19 at 3.41.26 in the afternoon


What if the payment is failed?

If the bill fails to be paid, you can click on the Failed tab. In addition, we will send an email to registered payment owners or bill creators so that no failed payment is left behind. 

If you want to see the reason the payment bounced, scroll until you find the Status column. 

  • If the bill is duplicated, there'll be a warning icon. Check more on how to avoid duplicate payments.
  • If the bill fails to be paid for other reasons, click on any of the bills and check the timeline for the audit trail. There you'll find the cause behind why the payment is not delivered. Reasons may vary from not having enough funds in your wallet to missing vendor details.

    At times, Peakflo will give you instructions on what to do if the payment fails, but here's a quick rundown along with the solutions:  

    Not enough funds in wallet:
    Please top-up your wallet to continue the payment.
    Payment not configured: Please contact help@peakflo.co
    Missing vendor details: Please complete the bank details of said vendor. 
    Invalid vendor details: One factor could be an invalid or blocked bank account. Please check and correct the bank details of said vendor.

    Encountered error when processing the transaction. Please try again after 1-3 hours
    The amount is below the minimum value required for successful disbursement
    Swift code is not valid. Contact Peakflo: 
    Learn more about how swift codes work in our create and upload bills guide.

     
    If you encounter any other issues with failed payments, do not hesitate to contact us. We will guide you shortly on how to proceed with the payment. 

Once the issue is resolved, you can re-click the bill and try paying again, schedule another date for the payment, or mark it as paid in case you've paid outside Peakflo. Read more about how to conduct mass actions on multiple bills.