Updating Company Preferences

 As a Certify AP Administrator, you have the ability to update company preferences for yourself and for other employees in your company. 

This article will show you, an Accounts Payable Employee, how to manage company permissions.

1. From the Certify AP homepage, click the gear icon.

2. Click your Company Name on the left-hand side.

3. Click Company Preferences.

4. This is the Company Preferences page for your company. To enable a certain control, click the checkbox to the right of it.

General Controls

• Track Projects: Mark this checkbox to enable employees to associate a project to line items on a Purchase Requisition or Invoice. To require employees to associate line items with projects, mark the Require Projects checkbox on the Department Preferences tab.
• Fiscal Year Start: Click the drop-down menu and select the month that begins your company's fiscal year. Please Note: After you upload your company's budget(s) to Certify AP, you cannot change your fiscal year..
• Use Invoice Cutoff Date: Mark this checkbox to prevent an Invoice submitter from entering an Invoice dated before a certain cutoff date. Click the calendar to select the Invoice Cutoff Date.
• Allow User to Override Currency Rates: Mark this checkbox to enable Invoice submitters to override the currency exchange rate on an Invoice. This feature enables the employee to apply a better or more accurate currency conversion rate.
• Enable Quick Add Item: Mark this checkbox to enable submitters to Quick Add items to Purchase Requisitions. Quick Add enables employees to quickly add a product that is not part of the company catalog to a Purchase Requisition. The employee must enter the product's price, vendor, manufacturer, and other information, but the product is only added to the current Purchase Requisition, not the company catalog.
• Enable Exporting Below the Root: Mark this checkbox to enable an employee with the Accounting Review permission to generate Invoice export files beneath the "root" (company-level). Example: If your company has multiple legal entities represented as departments that have separate General Ledger data files, enable the Accounting Reviewer to create separate Invoice export files for each legal entity.
• Allow Manual Checks in Invoices: Mark this checkbox to enable a check number to be entered on the Invoice that may have been recorded in your accounting system before being entered in Certify AP. If you enable this function, an Invoice submitter can note that a check has already been generated for this invoice. This function helps you avoid creating duplicate checks or double-paying vendors for payments made before or outside of Certify AP.
• Enable Unassigned Invoice Queue: This will allow users to send invoices to an unassigned queue and not to a specific approver.
• Allow Duplicate Invoice Numbers: This will allow users to create an invoice with an invoice number that is already in use by the vendor selected for the invoice. 

Decimal Places

• Quantity: Click the drop-down menu and select a number of decimal places. All Certify AP items support quantities using the number of decimal places you select.
• Price: Click the drop-down menu and select a number of decimal places for price. All Certify AP amounts support quantities up to the number of decimal places you select.
• Extended: Click the drop-down menu and select a number of decimal places for extended price (quantity times price). All Certify AP amounts support quantities up to the number of decimal places you select.

Routing Controls

• User Approval Delegation: This enables the Administrator to assign other approvers to approve waiting transactions when that approver is out of the office.
  • Turn on User Approval Delegation for all approvers: Select this button to turn on UAD for any employee that has approval permission. Once you activate UAD, you or an approver can add any employee with approval permission a delegate in the department in which they have permission.
  • Turn on User Approval Delegation for approvers with the Approval Delegate Permission: Select this button to turn on UAD and enable you or another user with the Administrator permission to choose who should be an approver delegate. When you activate this option, you can make any employee with Approval Delegate permission and the approval permission an Approval Delegate.
  • Turn off User Approval Delegation: Select this button to turn off UAD (that is, disable all approvers from having delegates).
• Approval Escalation: Occasionally, an approver may not approve time-sensitive transactions quickly enough. You can set up Certify AP to escalate these time-sensitive transactions (move them up the approval chain to the next approver). To set up the escalation of transactions that have not been approved within a certain time period, click Define Rules.
• "No Limit" Approval Checking: A company's No Limit Approver is an approver who has the highest spending and approving authority in the company (for example, the CEO). To require an employee to approve or disapprove the No Limit Approver's submitted transactions, mark this checkbox.
• Require Secondary Approver: Mark this checkbox to require any approver who submits a Purchase Requisition to be approved by the next approver in the approval chain. This setting ensures accountability and approval for approvers.
• Enforce Reapproval Thresholds: Sometimes, the transaction amount for a purchase increases after the Purchase Requisition is approved. Mark this checkbox to enforce reapprovals of Invoices and Purchase Orders when the transaction amount increases after they were approved as Purchase Requisitions. Enter the percent, minimum, and maximum amounts that will require a reapproval of the transaction in the fields provided.
  • No reapproval required if variance <US$_: No reapproval is required if the difference in the amounts is less than a specific amount in US dollars. If the amount entered is less than the specified dollar amount, then the Invoice will not need reapproval. Rules 2 and 3 do not apply. If the Invoiced amount is greater than the percentage entered, proceed to step 2. Enter a specific dollar amount in the field provided.
  • Reapproval required if variance >US$_: Reapproval required if the difference in the amounts is greater than a specific dollar amount. If the amount entered is less than the amount entered here, proceed to step 3. Enter a specific dollar amount in the field provided.
  • Reapproval required if variance >_%: Reapproval required if the difference in the amounts is greater than a certain percentage of the first amount. If the amount entered is greater than the designated percentage, then the Invoice will require approval. Enter a specific percentage in the field provided.
• Enforce Thresholds During Receiving: Mark this checkbox to make sure the employee who placed an order reapproves the packing list if the shipment arrives and the price of items has changed. Certify AP uses the price and variance thresholds you chose in the Enforce Reapproval Thresholds section to determine whether a price change requires a reapproval.
• User-Based Approvals: You can use User-Based Approvals to create an approval chain for a specific submitter. You can designate one or more approvers for a submitter. There are no approval dollar limits associated with the approval chain.
  • Send to S.A.F by default if User-Based Approvals are not configured: Mark this checkbox if you would like the transaction to be sent for approval using the S.A.F approval chain that is configured for the department if the employee does not have User-Based Approval set up.
  • Send Invoices to S.A.F after User-Based Approval: Mark this checkbox if the Invoice should go through the S.A.F approval chain after the transaction has gone through the User-Based Approval Chain.
  • Send Requisitions to S.A.F. after User-Based Approval: Select this option if the Purchase Requisition should go through the S.A.F approval chain after the transaction has gone through the User-Based Approval Chain.
  • Allow Approvers Edit During Approval Process: Check the box if you would like to allow Approvers to edit GL, Project, Quantity, and other item details during the approval process. 

Transaction Settings

• SAF Generation Method: Select one of these buttons to determine if Certify AP compares transaction totals against the budget as part of the approval process.
  • Check Spending Limit Only: Select this button to set up the system so Certify AP automatically checks only the employee's spending limit, and not the budget, in the approval process.
  • Check Budget, then Spending Limit: Select this button to make the appropriate under/over budget flags display when a transaction is placed or approved. If you select this option, select one of the Comparison-Time Period options below.
    • Budget vs. Transaction, Month to Date: If the current transacction total is less than the monthly budget, then Certify AP bases approval exclusively on the Requisition Spending Limit.
    • Budget vs. (Actuals + Transaction), Month to Date: This compares the monthly budget to the employee's total purchases for the month (including the current transaction). If that total is less than the monthly budget, Certify AP does not require approval.
    • Fiscal Year: This compares the fiscal year budget to the employee's total purchase for the company's fiscal year (including the current transaction). If the total is less than the fiscal year budget, Certify AP does not require approval.
    • Calendar Year: This compares the calendar year to the employee's total purchases for the calendar year (including the current transaction). If the total is less than the calendar year budget, Certify AP does not require approval.
• Quick Approve: This enables approvers to approve transactions in their Approval Inboxes without opening the transaction's details page and viewing all its information. Select one of these buttons to choose whether approvers can use Quick Approve:
  • Enabled: Select this button to enable Quick Approve. Enabling Quick Approve enables approvers to briefly view a transaction's essential details (including the amount and the vendor) before approving it.
  • Disabled: Select this button to disable Quick Approve. Disabling Quick Approve ensures that approvers open each transaction's details page before approving it.
• Central Ordering: Select one of the buttons to enable or disable the Central Ordering function. This function routes approved Purchase Requisitions to an employee with the Central Purchasing permission to generate Purchase Orders. Using Central Ordering structures your department with one or more designated Purchase Order submitters.
  • Enable: Select this button to enable the Central Ordering structure. When selected, you can mark the checkboxes below:
    • Allow Requisition Submitters to create and place POs: Enable the employees with Enter Requisition permission to create and place Purchase Orders.
    • Allow Requisition Approvers to create and place POs: Enable the employees with Approve Requisition permission to create and place Purchase Orders.
    • Disable (default): Select this button to disable Central Ordering.
• Restrict GL Accounts by Dept: Mark this checkbox to restrict which GL Accounts certain departments can access. This restriction ensures that employees have fewer chances to charge the wrong GL Account for their department or access GL Accounts they should not access.
• Restrict Projects by Dept: Mark this checkbox to restrict specified projects (by department) from appearing in any drop-down menu that employees in this department can access. This restriction ensures that employees have fewer chances to charge the wrong project for their department.
• Allow Editing of Approved Reqs: Mark this checkbox to enable the employee who submitted a Purchase Requisition to edit Purchase Requisitions that have gone through the approval process. This preference also gives employees the ability to edit Purchase Requisitions in the Generate Purchase Orders page.
• Allow Editing of POS: Mark this checkbox to enable the employee to edit a Purchase Order after it is generated and sent to the vendor through the Manage Purchase Order screen.
• Allow Custom PO Numbers: Mark this checkbox to enable the employee to edit Purcahse Order numbers before the Purchase Order is sent to the vendor.
• Allow Approvers to add line items: Mark this checkbox to enable approvers to add new line items during the approval process. 
• Show Barcode on Check Requests: Mark this checkbox to set Certify AP to produce and print barcodes on your company's Check Requests. Barcodes can help your company store documents with an imaging provider. The barcode encodes the Vendor Name, AP Vendor ID, Invoice Number, and Invoice Date.
  • Barcode Field Delimiter: If you mark the Show Barcode on Check Requests checkbox, enter a character in this field to set as the delimiter used to separate the encoded data fields.
• Category Approver SAF Position: Mark this checkbox and select one of the buttons to decide whether the Category Approver (an approver responsible for approving Purchase Requisitions for specific product categories) is the first or last in the approval process.
  • First: Select this button to make the Category Approver the first approver in the approval process.
  • Last: Select this button to make the Category Approver the last approver in the approval process.
• Require Attachments for Invoices: Mark this checkbox to require Invoice submitters to include attachments before they can process the Invoice. Attachments might include the original Invoice the vendor sent your company.

6. Click Save when complete.