What is an Approval Task Request?

Setting up Bill Task automation

As shown in the above image, in the Company Settings section of the app, you will find a selection of settings you can enable/disable to give you flexibility over how Task Requests work. These are:

• Auto Approve - With this enabled, bills will automatically move to the next tab in the approvals workflow after the Task Request is approved.  
  
• Manager Approval - With this enabled, a second Approval Task Request will automatically be sent to a user's assigned Manager, after the user has approved the task. To set up a User's Manager, head into the User's section of the app, select the User in question and set up a Manager in the relevant drop down menu
  

***Note that this field will only appear if Manager Approval is enabled

Get more out of Task Requests by building in more automation. There are a few more ways to explore this:

1. Assign an approver to a supplier so that every time you receive a new bill from the set supplier, a task will be automatically triggered to the designated approver.
   Head to Suppliers > Select your supplier profile > assign an Approver

            

1. Activate Keyword Rule Automation, under Company Settings. Once activated, you can set a unique keyword or phrase that will be used as a trigger to not only auto assign a task but also automatically code GL Codes/Categories. This will be useful to direct bills to different approvers for the same suppliers based on the unique keywords/phrase set (see below). Read on to find out more. 

Life cycle of a Approval Task

This will differ depending on the preferences enabled in your Company Settings.

Default	With both Auto Approve and Manager Approval disabled,  after an Approval Task Request is approved by a user, the document will need to be physically approved in the approval workflow
Manager Approval	Once the User has approved the Task Request, a second Task Request will automatically be created and sent to their designated manager. Once both the User and Manager have approved the task, the document will need to be physically approved in the approval workflow
Auto Approval	Once the User has approved the Task Request, the document will automatically move to the next stage of the approval workflow e.g. from Approvals to Review, from Review to Signed Off etc.
Manager Approval and Auto Approval	Once the Manager has approved the bill, the bill will automatically move to the next stage of the approval workflow e.g. Approvals to Review

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Sending an Approval Task

From either your Approval Tab or your Review Tab, select the invoice and click on  the grey Task Approver icon to manually trigger a bespoke Task Request.

A box will pop up and you are given 2 choices on how you want to send it

User -  This option will send a request to a Lightyear user internally. When they login to Lightyear they will see a message notification in their Lightyear mail box. 

The user also has the option to opt in for Email notifications for Approval Requests (via My Profile). This means they will also receive an email to let them know a task has been received and can also be actioned via email. 

Please note that if they are subscribed to 'Notification' emails they can also receive an email daily, weekly or monthly to help them keep track of these tasks & internal mail.

Contact (Via Email) -  This option will send the person an email containing the invoice attachment and a link to Approve, Reject or Unassign, as well as the option to write a reply note.

 This is useful if you need approval from someone who doesn't need regular access to Lightyear for bespoke requests.

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Responding to an Approval Task Request

Via Communications Bar to Tasks

If a request is sent to a Lightyear user they will receive a notification in their Communications section:

Clicking this will take them to the 'My Tasks' page: 

1. In the Pending tab, the User will have the option to Approve, Reject, Un-assign/Reassign (if they believe the request was sent to them mistakenly) or put On Hold (to be approved at a later point) any tasks that they have received. 
   
2. The Actioned tab will show the user any previous task requests the user has received and what action they took.
   
3. The Sent tab will show any Bill Tasks the user has sent and what the status of the task is (if it has been authorised or is it still pending, etc), and in a future update will show Bill Tasks they have responded to.
   

If Manager Approval is enabled, the Manager will see the User who approved the task initially.

1. Actioning the document i.e. Approve / Unassign / Decline (pictured above)
   
2. View/Edit doc details so a user can either view and or edit the bill data when they review for approvals (as seen below). 
   
3. View Activity and notes associated with this document for collaboration at a document level

View/Edit options are available to the user based on the permissions assigned. Edit Approval Tasks will grant access to update documents

As a Contact/Tasks via Email

How to Action an Approval Task

There are different actions a Task Approver can take on a document:

To approve the task, simply click the green  Approve button within Panel 2, this will send the document back to Approvals, telling other users that it is ready to be exported to the accountancy software.

To reject the task, click the Reject button. This will send the document back to Approvals, telling others users there is an issue. You can leave a note in the text field to give more information on why it's being rejected.

If a task has been sent to you by mistake, you have two options to send it back. First is the  Un-assign button, this will send the task back, telling other users the task should be approved by another user instead. Second is the Re-assign  button. Clicking this will display a pop up modal, allowing you to choose another user to send the task to instead.

You can put the task  On Hold if required. This will let other users know you have received and read the task, but are waiting to action it further.

If you need to Dispute the document, or email the supplier directly, click More > select your option.

When Disputing, the task will remain pending and move to the Disputed tab. You can remove the document from the Disputed tab by clicking More > Remove from Disputed.

To email the supplier directly, enter the email address and body of the email and click Send.

NOTE: 

You can also select to receive Approval Task Requests via email even if they are sent to a User vs a Contact. These are set at a user level.

Head over to  My Profile > Communication preferences > Select  Yes for " Receive Email notifications for Approval Requests" to activate this setting.

  A Blue icon shows that a Bill Task is still waiting for a response

A lighter Blue icon shows that a Task is On Hold

  Green means the Task has been approved

 Red means the Task has been declined

 Yellow means the user replied that the Task was not meant for them

 Means a task has been approved, and is now waiting on a managers approval

A bill has been approved by a manager

      

Approving Tasks via the Mobile App

Open the app and head to the Approvals area.

To Approve a document, swipe from left to right and click the Approve option.

You will now have Approved that invoice.

Alternatively after reviewing the invoice, You may want to Reject the invoice, enter a Note, place the invoice On Hold, or click More to add an Attachment, Un-Assign the invoice from you or Re-Assign to another user Just like we swiped right on the invoice to show the approve button, this time we can swipe left to reveal more options. 

Then simply tap the desired button.

Remember you can use the "@" symbol to mention those members of you team that you want to make aware. They will receive a notification on their mobile device.