Turn on invoice approval routing so designated people decide invoices before they go to Xero or QuickBooks. Enabling Invoice Approvals adds the Approval Required banner and approval requests. It does not remove the Drum Status control.
Before you start
Decide who should approve (for example a project role or an account role with Invoice Approval). Make sure that role is filled on the projects you invoice. See Drum Permissions for account-role Invoice Approval.
Set up invoice approval
Open Settings → Approval Settings.
Find Invoice and select Configure. Use Edit if a rule already exists.
In Configure Approval Routing, check that Document Type is Invoice (not Write off).
Choose the Approval Routing type (for example Project Role).
Select the primary project role or account role that should receive approval requests.
Under Can also be approved by (optional), select any account roles that should be able to approve as backups.
Select Save Setting.
What changes on the invoice
After Invoice Approvals are on:
Setting Drum Status to Awaiting approval creates approval requests for the people resolved by your Invoice route, and shows the blue Approval Required banner for people who can respond.
The standard Drum Status control stays available. Invoice approvers and account admins can still pick Approved from that list.
If finance is connected and you may pick Approved, the invoice can also show Approve & integrate with Xero (or QuickBooks) on the invoice page.
Preferred path when routing is on
Create or edit the invoice as usual.
Set Drum Status to Awaiting approval so the approval request is created and the approver is notified.
The approver opens the invoice (or Home Approvals) and uses Approve on the Approval Required banner. That resolves the approval request and sets Drum Status to Approved.
Then push to finance: use Approve & integrate on the invoice if it is still unlinked, or set the Xero / QuickBooks status on the invoice as usual.
Answering Approve on the banner is what closes the pending approval request. Prefer that over flipping Drum Status to Approved on its own.
If you set Drum Status to Approved without the banner
Invoice approvers and admins can still choose Approved on the Drum Status control while a request is pending. That updates Drum Status only. It does not mark the approval request as approved.
What you may see:
Drum Status shows Approved.
The Approval Required banner can still show, because the request is still pending.
You may need to select Approve on the banner as well (a second approve) before the banner clears.
Use the banner Approve (or Reject) when a pending request exists, so status and the approval request stay in sync.
Xero / finance status after Approve & integrate
Approve & integrate sets Drum Status to Approved and pushes the invoice using your account Default integration status. Options are Draft, Submitted, or Authorised. The account default is Draft unless you change it.
There is no Xero status picker on the Approval Required banner. To change the account default:
Open Settings → Account Defaults.
Under Invoicing, set Default integration status.
To change one invoice after it is pushed, edit that invoice’s Xero (or QuickBooks) status in Drum, then confirm in your accounting platform. If a push fails, see If a project invoice will not push to Xero.
Reject
Authorised approvers can reject from the Approval Required banner or Home Approvals. Reject closes the request. Invoices have no Rejected Drum Status. See How to reject an invoice approval request.
If you archive an invoice that still needs approval
Archiving an invoice does not cancel its pending approval request. Home Approvals can still show that Approve item for the archived invoice.
Workaround: select Reject on the Approval Required banner or from Home Approvals before you archive, or Reject the leftover request afterwards so it leaves the pending Approvals list.
This is separate from setting Drum Status to Approved without the banner. That path also leaves the request pending. Archive is about the invoice going away while the request stays.
Related
How to Create Invoices for Projects covers Drum Status and pushing without routing.
Write-off invoices use write-off routing, not Invoice routing. See How to configure write-off approval flows.
Approval-needed notifications are separate from Event Trigger schedules. See Dynamic Notifications in Drum.