All Collections
Datamolino user guide
Features
How to get started with Basic Approval
How to get started with Basic Approval

How to get started with Datamolino simple approval flow for documents in your folder.

Jan Korecky avatar
Written by Jan Korecky
Updated over a week ago

Version 02. Sept. 2019

Introducing Simple Approval

Datamolino now has an optional Approval workflow that you can turn on for folders where you approving invoices would provide more clarity in your workflow.

We have discussed this simple approval workflow in the following scenarios:

  1. Approval - invoices are approved if they are valid and data is captured correctly. 

  2. Document handoff - client approves invoices before the bookkeeper starts coding and exporting  to the bookkeeping software

  3. Quality Assurance - internal approval of documents before export. Junior team can prepare the transactions for export and a QA user will check if transactions are coded correctly. The Junior team then reviews the Rejected transactions to learn what errors they made (each rejection has a visible "reject reason")

(for users of our API the approval process can be used to mark invoices that are ready to ingest through the API)

For now we have kept things very simple. There are no special user roles, no rules. Just simple Approve / Reject / Reset.
In this way you can adapt the use of the Approval Add-on to your own scenario. 

Based on user feedback we will prioritise enhancments to the system.

~~~~~~~~

Basic principles

All transactions in the Approval flow should end up as "exported".
So the goal is to move the transaction from Please Review / Awaiting Approval to Approved / Rejected. And all invoices that are Approved should be exported.
And all documents that are Rejected should be either deleted or send back to Awaiting Approval. 

~~~~~~~~

Cheat sheet

Please Review - Delete the transactions that are "not extracted" (or amend the necessary invoice data). Resolve Duplicates.
Awaiting Approval - Approve or Reject from here
Approved - Export invoices from here
Rejected - Delete invoices if you are satisfied with the rejection reason (remember that you can also Reject & Delete in one step if needed). Or send back to Awaiting approval.
Export Errors - resolve export errors
All files - all your transactions that are not deleted. Here you can find everything.

~~~~~~~~

Turn on Simple Approval for your folder

You can turn on the Approval workflow in the Folder Settings  as follows:

Go to your folder >> Folder Settings >> and click ON in the Folder Add-on section. 

You can turn off the Approval workflow at any time without risk if you no longer wish to use it.

Get started with the Approval Workflow

Once you turn on the Invoice Approval, new tabs will appear in your Folder:

  • Please Review

  • Awaiting Approval

  • Approved

  • Rejected

  • All files

In addition to this you will also have:

  • Export errors (only if some documents failed to export)

  • Trash

~~~~

How to use the Please Review tab

The Please Review tabs groups documents that are not ready for Approval just yet:

  • documents that have not been extracted

  • transactions identified as Duplicates

At the end of the day, the Please Review tab should be empty. 


For documents that are "not extracted":
You should either delete the transactions that are not invoices or you can manually amend the data to move them to the "Awaiting Approval" tab.

For Duplicates:
You can either resolve the duplicate message or delete the document.

~~~~~~~~

How to use the Awaiting Approval tab

The Awaiting Approval tab groups invoices that have been captured by Datamolino and are "ready". 

At this stage your options are:

  • Approve

  • Reject

  • Reject & Delete

  • Reset to Awaiting Approval

When you Reject a transaction you can also record a "reject reason". 

The reject reason will be shown in the document detail of the transaction and also visible on mouse over when you hover over the "rejection icon"

~~~~~~~~

How to use the Approved tab

The Approved tab groups invoices that have been approved and are not yet exported. Once you export invoices they will no longer be shown in the Approved tab. You will find them in the "All files" tab that serves as the archive. 

In other words, when you are done with exporting documents, the Approved tab should be empty (and the Export Errors tab should be empty as well).


You can Reset the approval status and also change the approval status from Approved to Rejected.

~~~~~~~~

How to use the Rejected tab

The Rejected tab groups all documents that have been rejected.
You can easily review the reject reasons by hovering over the rejection icon in the list. The reject reason is also visible in the document detail.


From here you have the choice to DELETE the document, Reset the Approval status to "Awaiting Approval" or Approve the document.

You should aim to resolve all rejected transactions by either deleting them or sending them back to the Awaiting Approval status. 

~~~~~~~~

How to use the All files tab

You will find everything that is not in the Trash in the All files tab. It is your archive of documents that have been processed in Datamolino and you want to keep them.

(please note that the Trash should not be treated as archive. Documents in the trash will be permanently deleted after a period of time)

Did this answer your question?