Set up vendor approval

Set up vendor approval to require that new and edited vendor records be approved before users can post vendor transactions.

Before you begin

When you enable vendor approval, Sage Intacct sets the state for all existing vendors to approved. This includes active and inactive vendors, which retain their status after approval.

Review your vendor list before you enable the feature, to make sure that you are comfortable approving all vendors. Make any adjustments to the vendor records before you turn on vendor approval.

Enable vendor approval

1. Before you enable Vendor approvals, verify that you have the Approve vendor: List permission.

   The permission is necessary because after you enable Vendor approvals, Sage Intacct automatically updates the audit trail for all active and inactive vendors to show them as approved. The user who enables Vendor approvals recorded as the approver.

   You can remove the permission after all vendors are updated.

   The process of updating the audit trail might take some time, depending on how many vendors you have. Users will not be able to add, edit, delete, or import vendors until the process completes, so you might want to enable this feature during off hours.
2. At the top level, go to Accounts Payable > Setup > Configuration.
   Is the Enable vendor approval checkbox grayed out?

   Because this option affects all entities within your company, you must be at the top level to enable or disable approvals.

3. Under Vendor approval settings, select the checkbox for Enable vendor approval.
4. To allow users to receive notifications, select the checkbox for Email notifications.

   When Email notifications is selected, users can decide on an individual basis whether they want to receive the following:

   • Notifications of vendors awaiting approval
   • Notifications when a vendor that they submitted is approved or declined
5. Select Save.

   Sage Intacct begins the process of updating the audit trail for existing vendors. While the process is running, a message appears on the Vendors list to let users know that they cannot create, edit, delete, or import vendors at this time. Intacct notifies you by email when the update is complete.

6. Add additional approvers by assigning the Approve vendors: List permission, as needed.

   How you update the permissions depend on whether your organization uses role-based or user-based permissions.

   Learn more about changing user-based permissions and role-based permissions.

7. If you configured vendor approval to support email notifications, let users know that they can update their preferences to receive notifications.

   Approvers can receive notifications when a vendor is ready for their review and submitters can receive notifications when vendors they submitted are approved or declined. Users can configure notifications on their Preferences page.

All new or edited vendors are now submitted for review. Users with Vendor approval: List permission can go to Accounts Payable > All tab > Approve vendors to view the approval queue.

You can view the approval state for each vendor in the State field, which now appears in the Vendors list and on the vendor record, and a new History tab in the vendor record shows the approval history.