PracticePanther has options to streamline your invoice approval process built right in to our system! 

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1) When creating or editing a single invoice, turn "Submit this invoice for approval?" to "Yes" before saving your invoice.

This option is also available when batch billing multiple invoices as well.

Turning "Submit this invoice for approval" to "Yes" will hide the automatic payment options seen on the bottom before saving. This is because "Pending" invoices cannot have payments made on them.

2) After saving an invoice with the "Submit this invoice for approval" as "Yes", the invoice(s) will be saved with a status of "Pending Approval".

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1) Click "Approve" to move the invoice from the "Pending Approval" status to the "Saved / Approved" status. If the invoice has a due balance of 0, the invoice will save as "Paid / Approved" instead.

Approved Invoices will act just as a "Saved" invoice, without any limitations.

Every time the invoice moves between "Pending Approval" or "Approved" a note will be added in the recent activity found under that invoice to help you better track the flow of each invoice.

There are a number of shortcuts on the invoices page to assist you in transitioning invoices between statuses. 

If you hover over a "Pending" invoice, you'll have an "Approve" shortcut button. 

Meanwhile, hovering over a "Saved" or "Paid" invoice will provide you with a "Submit for Approval" shortcut. 

1) Click any checkbox next to any invoices in need of status change.

2) Click the blue gears drop-down list that appears at the top of the list.

3) Select "Submit for Approval" to mark the selected invoices as "Pending", and "Approve" to mark the selected invoices as "Approved".
​Note: Once an invoice is "Sent" or "Marked Sent", it can no longer be submitted for approval. 

On the invoices page or any invoice report, you can click "Choose Columns" on the top right to turn on the "Approval Date" and "Approved By" columns.

These columns will show you the most recent date an invoice was approved and the most recent user that approved the invoice. You can even hover your mouse over the checkmark within the status bubble to see the same information.

To see a quick list of all "Approved" invoices, regardless of their secondary status (Saved, Sent, Paid), change the "Status" filter to "Approved".

To see only invoices that were approved during a certain date range, change the "Bill Date" filter to "Approval Date". This will only show a list of "Approved" invoices as well.

To see only "Approved" invoices with a specific secondary status, like "Sent", use the "Approval Date" filter and change the "Status" filter to the secondary status of your choice. 

In the example below, I only wanted to see approved "Sent" invoices.

To see a quick list of all invoices awaiting approval, change the "Status" filter to "Pending".  To break this list down even further, change the "Bill Date" filter to "Created Date" to find only the most recent invoices needing approval.

In the example below, I just completed a batch of new invoices, so I changed the created date to the "Last 30 Days" option, showing me the invoices I just generated.

Anytime another user submits an invoice for approval, or approves an invoice for a contact or matter you're assigned to, you will receive a global notification on the top of your screen.
​-get picture of notification examples-

1) Click the "Globe" icon on the top of your screen.
2) On the bottom of your notifications list, click "Manage Notifications".

3) Turn off the notification you no longer wish to receive. Then click "Save".

1) In your settings page, click on "Invoice Options" found in the "Invoices & Payments" section, or click here.

2) Changing this default setting will control if future invoices will automatically be submitted for approval or not. If you plan to submit the majority of your invoices for approval, change this setting from "No" to "Yes", then click "Save".

Note: It is ultimately up to the firm to discuss a specific invoice approval process that makes the most sense for them. Any user with permission to create invoices has the ability to submit those invoices for approval during the creation process. 

In order to approve an invoice, or submit any existing invoice for approval, a user would need permission to edit invoices.

To limit a user's ability to approve an invoice or submit existing invoices for approval, simply turn off the "Edit" and "Edit All" access level for invoices seen below. For more information on access levels, click here.

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