AvSight Administration—Setting up Account Approvals

Topics covered in this article include:

Setting up automated account approvals
Setting up manual account approvals

Account Approvals provides a way to streamline the workflow for accounts by setting an approval for transaction types and adding an expiration date for the approval.  This article will help you set up AvSight to automatically approve a customer or vendor account based on specified criteria, as well as automatically revoking that approval if the account no longer meets that criteria.

Setting up Automated Account Approvals

AvSight contains an Account approval module that controls account approvals in various areas of the system and allows different levels of automation. By default, Account Approvals are disabled.  When disabled, the system will allow users to freely create customer quotes, sales orders, purchase orders, etc. on any account. When the option is enabled, the Account must be marked to Allow Quotes, Allow Sales Orders, Allow RFQs, Allow Purchase Orders, Allow Repair Orders and Allow Work Orders or some combination of those approvals. Enabling the option provides additional controls that determine whether and for which modules Accounts can be used but, it will also then require someone to be responsible for maintaining these settings to ensure they are up to date.

To enable automated account approvals, log onto AvSight, select the gear icon in the upper right hand corner and select Setup.

From the Setup page, expand the Custom Code item in the left side menu and select Custom Metadata Types to display the available custom metadata types.  CAUTION: Working in the Setup screen will access areas that will allow AvSight system fields other than the ones described in the article to be modified.  Modifying these other fields without the direction of AvSight Support may break functionality. Next select AvSight Setting on the All Custom Metadata Types page.

Select Manage AvSight Settings on the resulting page and Company Setting on the next page.

On the Company Setting screen, select edit and then check the box next to Require Account Approvals to enable account approvals. Save the settings and return to the AvSight app.  NOTE: Enabling account approvals for the first time will immediately block all accounts as unapproved from all modules until individual module approvals are set up.

Setting up individual accounts for automated approvals

Once the system setting has been enabled, each account must now be set up for approvals.  Note: As mentioned above, all accounts will be blocked and require manual approval unless this step is followed.

In AvSight, select the Accounts tab and select the account to be set up. In the account window select the Account Approvals Tab.

On the Account Approvals tab select New to open the New Account Approvals dialog box.

This dialog box allows you to approve a specific vendor for each module either as a blanket approval—approved for this type of transaction regardless of any conditions—or to conditionally approve them for certain transactions based on specific criteria.  For example, in this instance we want to approve Test Account for Repair Orders, but they can be used only as long as their FAA certification is valid.  Once it expires, an employee with approval authorization needs to be notified that it is and that the vendor or customer is no longer approved for repair orders.  In the New Account Approvals screen, select FAA as the Approval Type, select RO as the Unapprove Type.  Enter the Expiration Date of their certification date as well as the Approval Date.  To Automatically Unapprove the account when the certificate is expired, select Auto Unapprove? And provide an email address to alert an approver that this account is no longer approved and the unapproval reason needs to be corrected.

The following fields are available in the New Approval dialog box:

1. Approval Type: Some examples of supporting approval types could be ISO Cert, FAA Repair Station, Airline Supplier Association (ASA), etc. You may add as many types as needed.
2. Auto Unapprove?: This option allows the system to run a job on the expiration date that will remove the account approval for the modules set under the “Unapprove Type” field.
3. Unapprove Type: Select all the modules that are supported under this entry. Any modules selected here will be turned off once the expiration date is reached if the Auto Unapprove? is selected.
4. Notification Email: This person will get a report on the date that the automated approval removal happens. We suggest creating a report on the “Account Approvals” for Expiration Dates about to occur in order to manage the supporting approvals in anticipation of the expiration.

If the account is to be approved unconditionally, instead of opening the Approvals tab, scroll to the Approvals section of the Details screen and check the desired approvals type.

NOTES:

1. If you do not want to automate the Account Approvals, do not select the Auto Unapprove? option and then you can manually maintain the approvals as outlined above.
2. You can add as many account approvals as needed to record the supporting approval for that account. Continuing the example above, the same account could also have RO approval contingent upon ISO certification and/or Accounting Approval.  Conversely, multiple unapproval types could be associated with a single approval type.  Example ROs, POs, and Sos could all be contingent upon the same FAA certification.  Simply add additional unapproval types to the Chosen box the Account Approvals dialog box.
3. If you select the Auto Unapprove, on the expiration date of September 16, 2020, the users will not be able to open new Repair Orders for this account as the “Allow RO” will be automatically unselected. This unapproval will not affect the ability to receive parts on already existing ROs or paying the invoice.
4. The Account approvals can be customized for your needs. Below are a few examples:
   1. SO with Approval Type=Credit Review
   2. CQ with Approval Type=Qualified Customer
   3. RFQ with Approval Type=Qualified Vendor
5. There is a file stored each time automated Account Approvals are done with a log of the approvals processed. The file is stored under Administration > Company Master > Company ID > Related->Files.