Set up journal entry approvals

Before you can assign a user as an approver, the user needs permission to approve journal entries.

On the General Ledger Permissions page, find Approve journal entries, and select List beside it.

If you use role-based permissions, make sure that you want to give this permission to all users who are assigned the role.

If your company uses role-based security, you can create a user group to add as an approver. Any member of the group can approve an entry. Approval is needed from only one member.

See the following pages in the help for more information:

• Add a user group

• Assign a role to a user group

If you're working in a multi-entity company, and you need to designate different approvers per entity, start at the top level. After you’ve finished setting up approvals at the top level, go into each entity and select the approvers.

1. Go to General Ledger > Setup > Configuration.

2. Under Approval options, select Enable journal entry approvals.
3. Select Manage approvals, and then select Edit.

4. Optionally, select Submitter can approve own entries.

   If you do not want approvers' journal entries to be automatically approved when they submit them, do not select this checkbox. You'll be able to select a substitute approver for each journal.

5. Optionally, select Enable delegation to let approvers select someone else with approval permissions to approve journal entries on their behalf. For more information, see Delegate approvals.

6. Optionally, select an Admin approver.

   For more information, see Create an admin approver.

7. In the table, specify approvers for each journal that requires approvals.

   You can do this in one of three ways:

   Authorize one approver per journal.

   1. In the Journal column, on the first blank line, enter a journal.

   2. Select Show details.

   3. In the Approver column, select a user.

   4. If you are not allowing users to approve their own entries, select a substitute approver.

   Authorize a group of users.

   Any member of the group can approve journal entries. Only one approval is required.

   1. In the Journal column, on the first blank line, enter a journal.
   2. In the Approver column, enter a user group to authorize everyone in the group as the approver.

   3. If you are not allowing users to approve their own entries, select a substitute approver.

   Create a multi-step approval chain.

   In this workflow, two or more approvals are required for each journal entry. Each entry is routed to the first approver. After they approve it, it's routed to the next approver.

   1. In the Journal column, on the first blank line, enter a journal.

   2. In the Approver column, enter a user to authorize them as the approver.

   3. If you are not allowing users to approve their own entries, select a substitute approver.

   4. On the next line, enter the same journal and select a different approver and—if applicable—a substitute approver.

      Repeat this step to add additional levels in the approval chain.

8. Select Save and then select Save again.

In the Email notification frequency section, you can set up Intacct to send email notifications to approvers about entries that require approval. You can select how often notifications are sent:

• None: Notifications are not sent. This is the default selection.
• Individual transactions: A notification is sent every time a transaction approval is requested.
• Daily summary: A notification is sent once a day, just after the end of the day.
• Weekly summary: A notification is sent once a week, at the start of the last workday of the week.
• Monthly summary: A notification is sent at the end of the month, at the start of the last workday of the month.

Summary notifications include all activity that has occurred after the last previous notification that was sent.

Your company calender determines the exact time or day of the week or month that summary notifications are sent.

For each transaction needing approval, the notification includes a link to review the transaction, and the following details:

• Name of the person who submitted the transaction.
• Date submitted.
• Journal.
• Transaction number.
• Description.

As people change roles in companies or leave them altogether, an approver might no longer be available to approve journal entries. To make sure that there's always someone who can approve an entry, create an admin approver.

Journal entries created by the admin approver are automatically approved.

1. Go to General Ledger > Setup > Journal entry approvals.

2. Select Edit.

3. Select a user in the Admin approver dropdown list.

   It's best to select someone who is not usually part of the approval process.

4. Select Save.

A submitter can approve their own journal entries if the following requirements are met:

• On the Journal entry approvals page, the Submitter can approve own entries checkbox is selected.
• The submitter is an approver for the journal.

To receive emails, email notifications must be set up on the Journal entry approvals page.

1. Select the User menu button at the top of any page, and then select My preferences.

2. In the Email notifications section, under Requests for approval, select Journal entry.

3. Select Save.