Bill approval settings allow you to set rules around which bills in your account require approval before they can be paid. There are two levels of policies to think about: Global and Per Property.
Global Policies
Setting a global policy in your account affects any bill across your entire Buildium account that does not fall under a property override (see below). A global policy will cover the broadest set of your bills and has two considerations: The General Rule and Vendor Exceptions.
General Rule
This will be the broadest rule at the account level. There are three options for a general rule:
- No bills for this account require approval
- All bills for this account require approval
- Bills for this account over a certain value require approval. Enter a value and all bills over that dollar amount threshold will require approvals before payment is allowed.
Example:
You have created a general rule stating that any bill over $500 requires approval before payment.
Two bills are recorded:
- Jim’s HVAC is recorded for $1000
- Doyle Landscaping is recorded for $450.
Since the general rule states that any bill over $500 requires approval, the bill for Jim’s HVAC WILL require approval is recorded before it can be paid.
Since it is under the $500 threshold, the bill for Doyle’s Landscaping Will NOT require approval is recorded before it can be paid.
Vendor Exceptions
Vendor exceptions allow you to customize approval rules for specific vendors. An exception will override the general rule IF there has been an exception added to the global policy for the vendor selected in the bill.
There are three options for a vendor exception
- No bills for this vendor only in this account require approval
- All bills for this vendor only in this account require approval
- Bills of this vendor only in this account over a certain value require approval. Enter a value and all bills over that dollar amount threshold for that vendor ONLY will require approvals before payment is allowed.
Example:
You have created a general rule stating that any bill over $500 requires approval before payment. You have also created a vendor exception for Tom’s Plumbing stating that All bills for Tom’s Plumbing require approval.
Three bills have been recorded:
- Jim’s HVAC is recorded for $1000
- Doyle Landscaping is recorded for $450
- Tom’s Plumbing is recorded for $25
The bill for Jim’s HVAC will require approval is recorded before it can be paid because it is greater than $500.
The bill for Doyle’s Landscaping Will NOT require approval is recorded before it can be paid because it is less than $500.
The bill for Tom’s Plumbing will require approval is recorded before it can be paid because all bills from Tom’s Plumbing require approval.
Per Property Policy Overrides
Setting a property policy override will only affect bills that have allocations for a specific property, allowing you to customize bill approval rules for each individual property or association.
A per property override will take priority over the global policy general rule and/or vendor exceptions if a bill has at least one allocation for a property that has had a policy override created for it.
There are two considerations for a per property policy override: General Rule and Vendor Exceptions.
General Rule
This will be the broadest rule at the property level. There are three options for a general rule:
- No bills for this property require approval
- All bills for this property require approval
- Bills for this property over a certain $ threshold require approval
- Enter a value and all bills over that dollar amount threshold will require approvals before payment is allowed.
- In the event that a property level threshold is greater than the global rule, the global rule will act as a catch-all and still cause the bill to be required.
Vendor Exceptions
Vendor exceptions at the property level allow you to customize approval rules for specific vendors and are the most specific rules you can create for approval settings.
An exception will override the general rule IF there has been an exception added to a per property policy for the vendor selected in the bill.
There are three options for a vendor exception
- No bills for this property for this vendor only require approval
- All bills for this property for this vendor only require approval
- Bills for this property for this vendor over a certain value require approval
- Enter a value and all bills over that dollar amount threshold for that vendor ONLY will require approvals before payment is allowed.
- In the event that a property level threshold is greater than the global rule, the global rule will act as a catch-all and still cause the bill to be required.