Purchase Approval Entries
The Purchase Approval Entries page enables you to carry out all relevant actions related to purchase approval, provided that you've been set up as an approver.
The page features a list of all documents pending your approval, and it allows you to edit the lines of each document (if you have the permissions to do so) and to add any approval comments that you may find relevant. Also, the document viewer is integrated into the page, enabling you to view each individual scanned document on the right side of the screen. You can even set up out-of-office approval sharing from the page yourself, if necessary.
The following sections describe the functionality of the page in more detail.
The action bar
The action bar contains a number of very commonly used purchase approval actions, gathered in one convenient place. Most of the actions are specific to Continia Document Capture, while some are standard Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central actions that have been included here for easy access. The table below provides an overview of the actions, accompanied by descriptions of each of them:
| Action | Description |
|---|---|
| Edit List | Select this to make the page either editable or read-only. For example, if you're unable to edit the document lines on the Purchase Lines FastTab, select Edit List to change the page from read-only to editable. |
| Delete | Select this to delete the entry that you've selected in the list of document approval entries. |
| Approve | Select this to approve the document of the entry that you've selected in the list of document approval entries. |
| Reject | Select this to reject the document of the entry that you've selected in the list of document approval entries. |
| Forward | Select this to forward the document of the selected entry to a different user for approval. You have up to three forwarding options, depending on your setup:
|
| On Hold | Select this to put the document on hold if you're not ready to approve it yet – for example, if you expect to receive a related credit memo or need more time to gather necessary information. By putting the document on hold, you signal to other stakeholders that you've received the document but may struggle to meet the approval deadline. Note When a document is on hold, it can't be finalized – for example, a purchase invoice can't be paid – even if it's approved. During approval, you can choose to remove the on-hold status of the document using the Remove On Hold dialog that's displayed. This is okay in some situations and undesirable in others, depending on your organizational setup. To prevent the Remove On Hold dialog from being displayed, see To set up purchase approval. |
| Document | Select this to open the related Business Central document (such as Purchase Invoice or Purchase Credit Memo). |
| Comments | Select this to add comments to the selected approval entry, or to view existing comments. All approval comments, including the ones you enter here, are also displayed at the bottom of the Purchase Approval Entries page, on the Approval Comments FastTab. See also Additional functionality below. |
| Show File | Select this to open and save the original PDF or XML file that was used to create the selected document. |
| Attachments | Select this to add attachments to the selected approval entry, or to view existing attachments. On the page that opens, you can add attachments simply by dragging them into the gray area at the bottom. All attachments, including the ones you add here, can also be viewed or downloaded using the dropdown menu in the upper-left corner of the document viewer. See also Additional functionality below. |
| Incoming Email | Select this to open the email that contained the original PDF or XML file which was used to create the selected document. |
| Out of Office Setup | Select this to set up out-of-office approval sharing. For more information, see Out-of-office approval sharing for individual users. |
Additional functionality
On the Purchase Lines FastTab, you can view the lines of the document as they've been captured by Document Capture or edited/entered by other users. If necessary, you can also edit the lines yourself to correct any mistakes or even add new lines, provided that Can Edit Posting Lines has been enabled for you as an approver. For more information, see To set up users as approvers.
On the Approval Comments FastTab, any comments relating to the selected approval entry are listed in chronological order, along with date and time stamps and the IDs of the users who added the comments. To add a new comment, follow these steps:
- In the action bar, select Comments to open the Approval Comments page.
- In the action bar, select New.
- Enter your comment, and close the page to return to the Purchase Approval Entries page.
Your comment will now be displayed as the last comment in the list of comments on the Approval Comments FastTab.
On the right side of the page, the document viewer displays an OCR-processed version of the document to be approved. The document viewer on the Purchase Approval Entries page isn't interactive as it is in the document journal or on the document card, but in other respects it's identical to the document viewers on those pages: It has the same overall appearance, you can resize it by dragging the vertical handle on the left side, and it features a dropdown menu with attachments in the upper-left corner. For more information, see The document viewer.