Payment Approval Stages: A suggested approach

This is one example of a suggested payment workflow. The following discusses how to implement different approvals roles. 

This approach relies on using the banking integration which makes sure a user doesn't tamper with ABA files. Other workflow examples provide other methods of making sure files have not been tampered with.

Drill down to the role description to see the tasks of each role and how to set the permissions:

Stage / Role	Tasks Summary
Operator	Enters and submits batch transactions
Manager	Approves batch transaction
Finance	Ensures payment is valid, checks funds, confirms bank details to source document.
Partner / Signatory	Reviews and authorises payment through internet banking.
Finalisation	Auditing, monitoring and verification

Partner / signatory

This workflow is intended to provide a streamlined approach. You may want different processes such as involving the authoriser as part of the approval process. 

In this example, the signatory/authoriser has been removed from the authorisation workflow steps, because:

• Including them in the workflow requires the authoriser to be involved in both the approval workflow and the subsequent bank file approval (i.e. double handling the approval as a two stage process).
• This example may suit a signatory/authoriser that does not tend to get involved in software entry.
• This can lead to less bottle necks and a more streamlined approach where a signatory/authoriser is required to play a part in the authorisation workflow.

This is one approach and other approaches can achieve the same objectives with a different process. Other example may be tailored to suit the workflow of your organisation.

Finance

In this workflow example the "Finance" role approves the final workflow stage, posts the entry and uploads the file. This role can be separated into two roles, however there is already a separation of the data entry (Operator) and the upload of the file to the bank (Finance).