11. Expense approval for Simpro users

Expense approval before exporting to Simpro is optional for Simpro users. You will need to modify the standard Simpro workflow to create a new workflow that include approval tasks.

I. Approval workflow options

For simRPO users, you can use

• generic EzzyBills approval workflows, or
• project manager approval workflow that is for Simpro only.

II. Generic EzzyBills approval workflow

Email to support@ezzydoc.com or call us, we will set up according to your company approval process.

III. Project Manager approval workflow (or PO creator approval workflow)

With this workflow, the approver is determined by EzzyBills looking up the job manager in simPro (under PO > JOB > Manager)

1. How to enable this?

• Login EzzyBills, and click the Workflows top menu.
• Click New Workflow. Click Create from Templates, choose the “Simpro Proj Manager Approval workflow”, and click Create.

• Optional to set it as the main workflow: Click the Down arrow icon in the “Simpro Project Approval” workflow on the workflow page, and click Set as Active Workflow.

The project manager workflow will be like this screenshot below, with two additional workflow tasks: “Proj Manager Approval” & “Proj Manager Approved”.

2. Change settings

Click the setting icon on the workflow task “Proj Manger Approval” to access the settings for this task.

2.1 Set the Approver Type

For the “Approver Type“, please read the info and enter your choice (see screenshot below). By default, it is set to the “Manager” (project manager) so you don’t need to enter anything if you wish to keep the default setting (Screenshot). Alternatively, you can choose “Creator” or “Salesperson” based on your requirements. Then click Save.

2.2 Set the approval rules

There are many approval rules. Most of them are the same approval rules as for the generic approval tasks.

There are two unique approval rules below that are only applicable to the Project Manager Approval task:

• If percent difference between PO total and invoice total > ? % then send for approval.
• If difference between PO total and invoice total > ? then send for approval

How to set up:

• In the workflow you created above, locate the Project Manager Approval task and click the Settings icon.
• In the settings window, select: “If percent difference between PO total and invoice total > ? % then send for approval.”
• Enter your desired percentage threshold (e.g., 10%) in the provided field (Screenshot).
• Click Save

With this setup, any uploaded bill that exceeds the specified percentage difference between the PO total and the invoice total will require manual approval before being exported. Once approved, the bill will be sent to Simpro.

If you prefer to set a rule based on a specific amount difference, follow the same steps but select: “If difference between PO total and invoice total > ?”, and enter the desire amount (make sure not to enter the currency symbol).

3. How does it work?

• When an invoice uploaded to EzzyBills, EzzyBills will read the PO number off the invoice. Then find this PO in Simpro and the job manager for this PO and his email address.
• EzzyBills then email this job manager an approval request (job manager will then click a button on the email to approve, reject, or modify/approve).

Screenshot 1: a job in Simpro

Screenshot 2: a PO in Simpro, allocated to a job

Screenshot 3: EzzyBills Approval Email 

IV. Advanced: set two levels of Project Manager Approval

For example,

• First level: Sales Person
• Second Level: Project Manager

How to set up the workflow: there are two set of workflow tasks of Simpro project manager approval (each set has two tasks). You will find these tasks by searching “proj”. Use both sets of tasks, each with different setting (one with setting for sales person, one with setting for project manager).

V. Advanced: how to use Simpro Project Manager Approval task, for invoices to export to Xero (not export to Simpro)

When creating workfiing, after the approval tasks, 1) add the task “valid invoice” and change the setting for this task to use Simpro as the export target (this will ensure that we will look into Simpro for the approver email), and then 2)add the task “xero export”.