Expense and Invoice Holds, Approvals, and Controls
Hold types
Holds block payment. System holds are placed by validation or matching - insufficient information, quantity, price, amount, distribution, duplicate invoice, inactive supplier site. Manual holds are placed by users with a hold name and reason. Release Holds removes a hold but records who released it and why; if the underlying problem remains, validation or the next process re-applies the hold.
Approval workflow
Invoice approval uses the BPM approval workflow, with rules based on amount, supplier, cost center, or other invoice attributes, plus approver limits. An invoice must be validated before it can be approved. Approval history is retained; reassignment and force approval are privileged actions and do not fix validation failures.
Controls
Key controls are segregation of invoice entry from approval and payment, duplicate invoice number checking, matching tolerances, hold audit trails, approval limits, and subledger accounting that produces a complete journal for every transaction. Expense report audit rules in Expenses select reports for audit before they transfer to Payables.
Worked example
An invoice for 12,000 fails validation because the supplier site is inactive. A quantity hold and an insufficient-information hold appear, and approval is blocked. Reactivating the site, revalidating, and releasing the holds with reasons lets the invoice be approved and selected by the next PPR.
Traps
Approving does not validate. Releasing a hold without correcting the cause triggers a re-hold. Force approval bypasses the approver, not validation or holds.