The Approval Center

Use the Approval Center to maintain financial oversight and ensure accuracy for sensitive billing adjustments. The Approval Center provides a centralized location to manage billing actions that require approval before they are finalized, including credits, discounts, refunds, recurring charges, and incidental charges.

Enable the Approval Center

The Approval Center is an entitlement-based feature that must be enabled by the ALIS Team. Contact your Account Manager or the ALIS Customer Success Team for assistance.

Once enabled, access the Approval Center from:

• Billing > Approval Center
• Dashboard icon

Configure Approval Center Settings

After the Approval Center is enabled, company administrators should configure approval workflows, approvers, and approval-related settings.

Navigate to Settings > Approval Center.  

Configure Approval Types and Approvers

Approval Center settings allow you to determine:

• Which billing actions require approval.
• Which users or security roles can approve requests.
• Whether a 1-tier or 2-tier approval workflow is used.

There is no default list of enabled approval types or approvers. Each organization configures its own approval structure. For assistance, contact your Account Manager.

Tier 1 and Tier 2 Approvers

The Approval Center supports both single-tier and two-tier approval workflows.

• Tier 1 (Primary Approvers) can create and edit billing entries (i.e., Add Credit) as well as provide the initial approval for requests.
• Tier 2 (Secondary Approvers) review requests that have already received Tier 1 approval. Once Tier 2 approval is completed, the billing task can be finalized. (i.e., Apply Credit). 

Enable Approval Types and Assign Approvers 

If you are a company administrator, follow the below steps to configure your Approval Center Settings:

To configure Approval Center settings:

1. Navigate to Settings > Approval Center.
2. Enable the Enable Billing Approval Process toggle.
3. Enable the billing action types (e.g., Credits) that require approval.
4. In the Primary Approvers dropdown, select the users or security roles authorized to provide Tier 1 approval.
5. Optional: Click Add 2nd Approval Tier to configure Tier 2 approvers.
6. Select the users or security roles authorized to provide final approval.
7. Click Submit to save your changes. 

Note: Users must have the appropriate security role permissions to appear in approver selection lists. Contact your Account Manager for assistance if needed.

Self-Approval Prevention Setting

A Company Setting is available to prevent approvers from approving or denying requests they created themselves.

Navigate to Company Settings > General Preferences > "Allow Billing Self-Approval for Configured Approvers."

When this setting is disabled:

• Approvers can still view requests they created in the Approval Center.
• Approve and Deny actions are disabled for self-created requests.
• Badge counts exclude self-created requests.
• Users can still Edit or Delete requests they created.
• Users with the specific Administer Approvals security role permission can override this setting and approve or deny any request regardless of creator. 

Navigate the Approval Center 

The Approval Center is organized into three tabs to help you manage workflow.

Needs Your Approval tab

This tab displays outstanding requests that specifically require your action based on your designated Tier status.

Available Information

• Type refers to the billing entry (i.e. Credit, Discount, etc.) requiring approval.
• Open For shows the creation date of the approval type and the amount of time that has elapsed since. 
• Description provides an overview of the billing entry.  
• Status here displays the specific Tier (1 or 2) currently required. This column also lists the creator of the request and other designated approvers.

Available Actions

• The View Activity Timeline link opens a side-panel with request history. 
• The Details button opens the full Approval Details page.
• Approve or Deny buttons allow you to action the request immediately.
• Use Export to Excel, which respects filters and sorting for the current view.

Open Approval Requests tab 

This tab displays requests that are still pending approval, even if they no longer require your immediate action.

For example, after a Tier 1 approval is completed, the request remains here until Tier 2 approval is completed.

Available Information

• Status displays whether the request is awaiting Tier 1 or Tier 2 approval.

Available Actions

• Edit opens the source billing entry (e.g., Resident Profile or Invoice Editor).
• Delete removes requests entered in error. Comments are required when deleting requests
• Export to Excel respects filters and sorting for the current view.

Completed Approvals tab 

This tab serves as the audit log for finalized approval requests. Filters are available to help locate historical records.

Available Information

• Requested Between defaults to the previous week.
• Status displays Approved or Denied.

Available Actions

• View Activity Timeline opens the request activity history.
• Details opens the Approval Details page.

• Export to Excel respects filters and sorting for the current view. 

  • In addition to standard approval information, exports also include: Invoice # and Invoice Date.

  • If multiple invoices are associated with a request, invoice values display as comma-separated entries.

Process Approval Requests

How to Approve a Request

1. Navigate to the Approval Center > Needs Your Approval tab. 
2. Review the request details. Optionally click Details for a full view and Activity Timeline.
3. Click the Approve button.

   • If you are Tier 1: The request moves to the Open Approval Requests tab until Tier 2 approves it.

   • If you are Tier 2: The request moves to Completed Approvals and the request is finalized.

How to Deny a Request

1. Navigate to the Approval Center > Needs Your Approval tab. 
2. Review the request details. Optionally click Details for a full view and Activity Timeline.
3. Click the Deny button. 

Denied requests move to the Open Approval Requests tab.

Resubmit a Request for Approval

If a denied request should be reviewed again:

1. Open the request from the Approval Details page.
2. Click Resubmit for Approval.
3. Optional: Add comments for internal communication.

Notifications and Alerts

Pending status

When a billing action requires approval, the item displays a Pending status throughout applicable areas of ALIS until the approval process is completed.

Dashboard notification

Approvers receive a red notification badge on the Dashboard icon when requests require action. The badge count reflects the total number of actionable requests assigned to the approver.

Note: If self-approval prevention is enabled, self-created requests are excluded from badge counts.

ALIS Alerts

To improve approval response times, ALIS can send automated SMS text or email alerts when billing actions require approval.

For more information on alerts, refer to these Alerts Settings and How to manage ALIS Alerts guides. 

ALIS Reports

Approval-related billing activity is available through Billing Reports.

Navigate to Reports > Billing Reports. 

Available reporting categories include:

• Credits
• Discounts
• Incidentals (Uninvoiced)
• Refunds
• Recurring Charges

For incidental charge reporting, also refer to the View Past Incidentals section of the Add Incidental charges in bulk guide. 

For more assistance: 888.404.ALIS (2547)  |  support@go-alis.com