Payment Approval before Invoice Approval is Now Possible

It is now possible to approve an invoice for payment before its content is approved. With this functionality, you can close VAT periods while still having the ability to redistribute amounts in approved invoices for payment. The condition is that both the VAT amount and the invoice amount do not change anymore. This means that invoices can be registered without linking all lines. Invoice lines can be adjusted before they are approved, as long as the totals of the invoice remain unchanged. If the total invoice amount changes due to modifying an existing line, adjusting the VAT, or adding a new line after the invoice has already been approved for payment, the following message will be displayed: "Cannot save Invoice 'xxxxxxxx'. Invoice has already been approved for payment, and invoice totals are no longer allowed to change."

Difference between blocking at header and line level
The action Approve Payment blocks changes at the header level, the action Approve Invoice blocks changes at the line level. If a journal entry has been financially processed at header level (via 'Process changes'), you can no longer change the header information of the purchase invoice. That does not mean that this purchase invoice can be paid; you still need to approve payment.

Applications

• So you can close a financial period and, for example, complete the VAT return, without having approved the purchase invoice. This allows you to change purchase invoice lines on such purchase invoices in other periods.
• Posting a purchase invoice as a prepayment: post a purchase invoice ('Purchase process' journal) and place the g/l account 'Cross entries' on the purchase line. You can then approve this purchase invoice and pay with it. Make sure you do not approve this purchase invoice. At a later time you can then enter the purchase order and link it to this purchase invoice.