Electronic Signatures on AP Checks

Bonnie Cody

Hello,

I want to implement Electronic signatures for printing on AP Checks, and I was wondering if anyone out there has had experience with this? What procedures to you have in place for invoice approval before the checks are signed. Normally our check signers have a hard copy of the invoice in front of them while they are signing the checks, but with electronic signatures they won't have that. What do other organizations do?

Kevin Brazell

@Bonnie Cody
Hi Bonnie,
for just regular approval, there is an AP Business rule that can be turned on that says Invoices are required to be approved before they can be Paid or Posted. If turned on, then someone with security rights would have to approve the invoice(s) first. But after that, you're free to post them to GL or pay them from the bank / treasury. Also from another security perspective, just like account security , there is Signature security. So while you can say a bank should use a particular signature when cutting checks, you can still say which signature a particular user could see / use in a check run. That way if someone is in the bank and cutting checks, the signature would only be allowed if their Signature Security rights allow it. Some organizations use that when they have several signatures and they are used in certain banks / situations. ALso here is how to set up using an E Signature :

Sharelle Buyer

@Bonnie Cody We use the electronic signature functionality in AP. Our CFO's signature is electronically printed on all checks, then I as the controller review all invoices and sign those that require a second signature. You can also do as Kevin suggests and have somebody review the invoices before they are even printed and the person reviewing would have to set the invoices to approved as they review them. The way we do it, if I find something wrong then the check has to be voided and invoice corrected, then reissue check.

Bonnie Cody

@Sharelle Buyer Thank you, this is very helpful.

Bonnie Cody

@Sharelle Buyer Question for you: Does your CFO look at the invoices that are being paid with his/her electronic signature and then give you the ok to print the check with their signature on it? At our organization, department heads approve invoices before they are entered into the AP module, so that they all get entered with an ‘approved’ status. When the signer signs the check, that's the final approval, so they physically have a copy of the invoice to look at before they sign.

Sharelle Buyer

@Bonnie Cody No our CFO doesn't look at all the invoices, I do. Budget managers approve the invoices and we enter as approved as well. When checks are cut, I go through every invoice to be sure approved, etc. and then double sign those checks requiring a second signature.

Bonnie Cody

@Sharelle Buyer Thank you Sharelle!

Dave Baacke

@Bonnie Cody
We just implemented this. Our internal process is that everything that is $5,000 or over requires the president's signature as well as mine. What we do now is review the payment batch with invoices prior to printing. If everything is ok, then I sign off on the report which our auditor said they will accept as proof of review. If there is anything over $5,000 we give the report and the appopriate invoices to the president and he signs off on the report as well.

Bonnie Cody

@Dave Baacke Thank you Dave, this is very helpful to know what other organizations do!

Bonnie Cody

@Dave Baacke Thank you Dave!