ApprovalMax
and Datamolino

Internal operations – and in particular, the internal accounting and finance department – need to be able to grow efficiently and effectively to support new and expanding processes.

And these processes must be standardised; paperwork should be cut back; and everything should be streamlined and accountable.

In other words, you need to embrace a fully digital and automated accounting process. Read on, to find out how to add a seamless approval process to your current workflow.

The key to implementing a fully digital and accountable accounting process is to eliminate the unnecessary.

Be that unwieldy paper trails or inefficient email communication, digitizing and streamlining your process is key.

That’s why you need a smart end-to-end solution.

Once the relevant information from your invoices has made its way from Datamolino into Xero, you will then need a more efficient way to approve the payment and edit Bills. That’s where ApprovalMax comes in.

It allows you to implement multi-step and role-based approval workflows, and automate large parts of the approval process. You can also create workflows based upon specific criteria for particular departments and individuals in your organisation, and approve invoices and purchase orders outside of Xero.

Both Datamolino and ApprovalMax are pre-integrated with Xero, and are available on the Xero Marketplace.

By using this integration, your process will look a little something like this:

• First, paper Bills are scanned by Datamolino and meaningful information is extracted (such as supplier, line items, bill amount, etc.)
• Review and coding of the scanned documents takes place. Information, such as tracking category and account, is added manually to the electronic version of the Bill. Review and coding can be done in both Datamolino and ApprovalMax
• Electronic Bills are published to Xero. Xero serves as the central data storage for both Datamolino and ApprovalMax. It’s important that Bills are published to Xero in the ‘Awaiting approval’ status; this way ApprovalMax will be able to pull them for approval
• Electronic Bills with the ‘Awaiting approval’ status are pulled to ApprovalMax. This is usually the preferred time to do Bill review and coding, as the Approvers will have the required business knowledge and authority to assign the account and tracking category parameters to the Bills
• A multi-step approval workflow is initiated by ApprovalMax, and approval requests are routed to the designated approvers. Approval routing rules are captured in the Approval Matrix by the Administrator. Approvers are notified of pending approval requests by email and push notifications via the smartphone app. Approval requests can be completed from directly within the email, the web platform, and via the mobile apps
• At every approval step, an audit report is created capturing data relating to the time and date of the approval, as well as the approver’s name and their comments, should they leave any
• Once the approval workflow is completed, the approved documents are marked as ‘Authorised’ in Xero.

Non-technical team members should have no trouble at all creating a unified approval workflow, and when they do, the benefits will be clear almost immediately.

For starters, the processing of invoices and purchases orders will become faster and more efficient, thanks in large part to the minimised paperwork and the availability of approval requests for managers via email and smartphone devices, regardless of whether they’re in their office or travelling.

And these internal processes will become a lot more accountable. With the option of auditing a fully digital process – and by centralising the data regarding the approvals – the entire financial workflow will be more transparent, accurate, and controlled.

Wave goodbye to unwieldy and inefficient accounting processes, and say hello to the streamlined future of digital financial workflows.