The Approve Invoice feature is optional in vWork.  This feature gives you the opportunity to review and mark as approved an invoice in vWork before it is shared with third-party accounting integrations or sent to the customer. The Invoice Approval status shows on the Invoicing tab in the Job Editor.

Note: If you don’t have this feature in your vWork account your invoices are approved automatically as soon as the job is completed. You won't see physical confirmation of invoice approval on the 'Invoice' tab if you haven't added the Approve Invoice feature to your account. 

If you would like to find out more about this or add it to your account, please email support@vworkapp.com. 

In this article

This article explains what it means to approve an invoice in vWork and how to do this.

Topics include:

• What does it mean to approve an invoice in vWork?
• How to approve an invoice in vWork
• What happens to an approved invoice exported to Xero, MYOB, or Quickbooks?

Click one of the links above to go straight to that topic. You can return to this topic list by clicking this icon.

What does it mean to approve an invoice in vWork?

When Invoicing is enabled for a job template, a vWork Admin or Dispatcher can approve an invoice for a job.

An invoice can only be approved when a job has a Status of Completed in vWork and Invoicing was enabled on the job template before the job was created.

When an invoice is approved using the Approve Invoice checkbox it means that:

• The job information and the invoice information for the job are fixed. The job and invoice can’t be edited or changed in any way.
  
  
• A record is kept in vWork of who approved the invoice and when they did this. This is available in the audit trail for the job.
  
  
• The invoice is shared with any accounting app integrated with your vWork account, such as Xero, MYOB, Quick Books online, etc.

💡Tip: An invoice can’t be changed while it has the Approve Invoice checkbox checked. To change an invoice after it is approved you must first click to remove the checkmark. You can then make changes to the invoice and then add the checkmark back to reapprove it.  This will be recorded in the audit trail for the job.

How to approve an invoice in vWork

Once a job is completed in vWork, it is simple to approve the invoice by completing the Approve Invoice checkbox.

Approve the invoice

To approve an invoice:

1. Open the job and switch to the Invoicing tab.
   
   
2. Click the checkbox next to Approve Invoice. This is located at the bottom of the invoice - see the example below.
   
   
3. Click .
   
   

View an Approved Invoice

To see who approved the invoice and when they did this:

1. Open the job and switch to the Invoicing tab.
   
   
2. The invoice approval details are displayed next to the Invoice Approved checkmark.
   
   

What happens to an approved invoice exported to Xero, MYOB, or Quickbooks?

When using the Approve Invoice optional feature in combination with one of the vWork third-party accounting app integrations (Xero, MYOB, Quick Books) only invoices with the 'Approved Invoice' checkbox completed are sent to the accounting integration. Invoices that aren’t yet approved are not sent unless the third-party integration supports draft invoices (like Xero). In this instance, the invoice is sent across as a draft invoice and will also need to be approved in the third-party app.

Related topics

• You can view the invoice approval status for a job in the Jobs tab. The article, Configure the Jobs tab to show the invoice approved status, explains more about this.
  
  
• You can generate reports to show jobs that have and haven't had their invoices approved. The article, Run reports to show the invoice approval status for jobs, explains how to do this.
  
  
• You can also notify stakeholders when an invoice is approved by sending them an alert or in-app notification. You can read more about this in these articles, What can trigger an Alert? (see the topic about Job Progress alert triggers), and Set up an Alert.