XBert Type: Standard
Accounting Software: Xero, MYOB, QuickBooks Online
Country Restriction: All supported countries
Risk Type: Financial Reporting Risk
Business Function: Purchases
Overview
The "Bills in Draft or Awaiting Approval" XBert finds supplier bills that have been sitting in Draft or Awaiting Approval status for some time without being finalised. Until a bill is approved, it does not flow through to your financial reports, so unapproved bills can leave your expenses understated and your tax figures incorrect.
What it does
It scans your supplier bills (accounts payable) and looks for any that are still in a Draft or Awaiting Approval status. It groups the unfinalised bills by the month they are dated and shows the number of bills and their total value for each month, so you can quickly see where expenses have been entered but never approved.
How it works
With each data sync, XBert reviews supplier bills dated within roughly the last 12 months and raises an alert for any month that still contains bills which:
are in Draft or Awaiting Approval (Submitted) status, and
have a value greater than zero.
To avoid flagging bills that are simply still being processed, XBert deliberately gives recent bills time to be finalised. It only looks at bills that are at least two to three months old, so a bill you entered last week will not be flagged. Bills that have already been approved (authorised), voided or deleted are ignored, as are bills with no value. When every bill in a flagged month has been approved or voided, the alert for that month clears on its own.
Example/Use Case
Mark from MBA Cleaning receives a $880 bill from ABC Mowing Service and enters it into his accounting software, but leaves it in Draft and forgets about it. A few weeks later he pays the supplier in cash. Because the bill was never approved, the $880 expense never reaches MBA Cleaning's Profit and Loss report, and the $80 of GST included in the bill is never claimed on the BAS. Mark's books understate his costs and he risks overpaying tax. Once he approves the bill and matches it to the payment, his expenses and GST are recorded correctly and the XBert resolves.
Accounting software
Xero, MYOB and QuickBooks Online.
Which countries it supports
All supported countries.
Processes
This XBert falls under the Purchases (Accounts Payable) area and helps keep your expenses and tax reporting accurate. To resolve it:
Open the list of bills flagged for each month.
Review each bill and approve any that are genuine and ready to be recorded.
Void or delete any bills that are duplicates, errors or no longer needed.
If a bill has already been paid, approve it and match it to the payment so the expense and any GST or VAT are captured.
Once every bill for that month has been approved or removed, mark the XBert as resolved. It will clear automatically as your data syncs.