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Invoice approval workflow - only automated actions

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Posted on by 41

Hello,

I have a business request to not allow posting of any invoices over a specific amount if they are not linked to a purchase order.

My idea was to use the vendor invoice workflow and set up the following steps:

  1. If invoice total is less than [amount] OR invoice total is over [amount] but PO field is not empty -> auto approve
  2. If invoice total is over [amount] and PO field is empty -> auto reject

The invoices shouldn't be assigned to anyone for approval, they should simply be automatically rejected or automatically approved.

However, I can't seem to get this behaviour in the workflow designer?

If I use the Approval step, it requires me to assign it to someone ("Selected assignment type: None is not supported").

If I use a conditional decision, the only thing I could think of was to create a task and assign it to the workflow originator if the conditions are not met. However, if the user receives this task and they simply click "Complete", the workflow finishes and they can proceed with invoice posting even if they didn't update it. I couldn't find a way to force the users to resubmit the invoice to the approval workflow. 

Does anyone have any useful tips on how to implement this request? 

  • Suggested answer
    WeepingAngel Profile Picture
    WeepingAngel 41 on at
    RE: Invoice approval workflow - only automated actions

    After multiple hours and an insane number of attempts, this is what I came up with:

    1. Put conditional step verifying if invoice is linked to PO
    2. If yes, invoice is automatically posted 
    3. If no, put approval step 
    4. In the approval step, set automatic rejection in case invoice is not linked to a PO - this will always happen because the conditional step already made sure of it
    5. In the approval step, set up "dummy assignment" - approval is assigned to the workflow owner, but this assignment will never happen because the condition for automatic rejection will always be true

    Since the workflow now ends in rejection if the invoice is not linked to a PO, it causes two notification emails to be sent out to the workflow originator. This is due to the well-known workflow bug ("feature"): (+) Email notification to the user for Rejected Purchase requisition - Microsoft Dynamics AX Forum Community Forum

    I then set up a filter in the email batch distributor parameters so that it ignores emails created with the subject "Record returned". Only emails with the subject "Approval returned" are sent out to users, and they contain the notification information that I have set up in the workflow. "Record returned" emails are useless because they do not explain why the invoice was returned, so it's up to the user to guess.

    It's not a super elegant solution but it's the best I could come up with which:

    • completely prevents invoices from being posted if they don't meet the criteria 
    • do not require anyone to manually approve or reject anything
    • sends out only relevant notifications to users when something is wrong with their document
  • WeepingAngel Profile Picture
    WeepingAngel 41 on at
    RE: Invoice approval workflow - only automated actions

    There is no next approver, this is why I'm saying I need this to be done automatically as there is no approver in this case.

  • saurabh bharti Profile Picture
    saurabh bharti 15,029 Super User 2025 Season 1 on at
    RE: Invoice approval workflow - only automated actions

    What if you just create approval step and in that you create automatic action for this condition and rest just assign to next approver.

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