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Setting up approval (attestation) for vouchers and payments

Explains what attestation is, the difference between voucher and payment attestation, and how to configure who approves and how many approvers are required. Includes common errors.

Written by Florence C.L.H. Kröger-Smedmann

What is attestation?

Attestation is an internal approval process where one or more people must approve a voucher or payment before it can be processed further. It is a control mechanism — not a bank agreement.

In Catacloud, you can set up attestation at two levels:

  • Voucher attestation – the voucher (e.g. a supplier invoice) must be approved by one or more people before it can be paid.

  • Payment attestation – the payment itself must be approved in Catacloud before the payment file is sent to the bank.

The two are independent and can be used separately or in combination.

What is the difference between a bank agreement and Catacloud attestation?

It is important to distinguish between two different setups for payment approval:

  • The company has a bank agreement defining who has signatory rights – One or two authorised persons must sign the payment for it to be processed. See the article Sending a payment to the bank.

  • Attestation in Catacloud – An internal control that takes place before the payment leaves Catacloud. The payment file is not sent to the bank until the required number of approvals has been given in Catacloud.

Are you using bank integration?

With bank integration, Catacloud acts as the actual signing portal for the bank. The payment file is sent to the bank only when all required approvals have been completed in Catacloud. The bank does not need any additional approval after the file has been received.

This means that:

  • If you require two signatories for the bank, this can be done in Catacloud by having both perform the approval directly in Catacloud.

  • Both approvals must take place in Catacloud. If one person approves directly in the online bank, Catacloud is not aware of this — the payment will remain in "Awaiting approval" in Catacloud and will not disappear automatically.

  • To retain full history and the link between vouchers and transactions: do everything in Catacloud, not in the online bank in parallel.

If you have already sent payments directly in the online bank and these are stuck in "Awaiting approval" in Catacloud: delete the payments from the payment list and mark the voucher as paid via account 1920 on the actual posting.

Note! Only delete payments from Catacloud so that synchronisation occurs via the integration and no history is lost. If deleted directly in the bank, it will not be updated in Catacloud.

Setting up voucher attestation

Go to Administration → Module settings → Accounting and find the Attestation section.

Here you can configure the following settings:

Enabled
Turns voucher attestation on and off.

Require at least
Select the number of approvers required: No approvers required, 1–5 approvers. Attestation is not activated on the voucher unless this number is met.

Fixed approvers
Select which users are available as approvers. The "One of" setting means that one of the selected people is sufficient — "All" means that every selected person must approve.

Only for voucher type
Restrict attestation to specific voucher types: Customer invoice, Supplier invoice, Customs declaration, Bank statement, or Advanced voucher. If you leave the field empty, attestation applies to all voucher types.

Lower amount threshold
Attestation only applies to vouchers with an amount higher than this threshold. Set to 0.00 for attestation to apply to all amounts.

Re-attest on rejection
When enabled: those who previously rejected an attestation must be included the next time the voucher is sent for approval again.

Department managers
Requires approval from the department manager when posting to a department.

Project managers
Requires approval from the project manager when posting to a project.

Required dimensions
Determines whether required dimensions (from the general ledger account) are added by the first or last approver.

Optional for integrations
Allows integrations that post vouchers automatically to bypass the attestation requirements. This must be enabled if you use Nettlønn or other integrations that transfer payroll or payment files to Catacloud — otherwise the file will be blocked by the attestation requirement and will not come through.

Allow self-assignment
Allows users to assign attestation to themselves.

Override rules
Allows administrators to override attestation rules and requirements.

Click Update settings when you are done.

Setting up payment attestation

Go to Administration → Module settings → Bank and scroll down to the Attestation section.

Here you can configure the following settings:

Wait until voucher is approved
Blocks a payment from being approved as long as the voucher has been sent for attestation but has not yet been approved. Recommended to keep active if voucher attestation is in use.

Bank attestation enabled
Turns payment attestation on and off. When active, the payment must be approved in Catacloud before the payment file is sent to the bank.

Require at least
Number of approvers required for payment: No approvers required or a specific number.

Fixed approvers
Select who can attest payments. "One of" means that one of the selected people is sufficient — "All" requires approval from all of them.

Lower amount threshold
Payment attestation only applies to amounts above this threshold.

Re-attest on rejection
Requires that those who rejected last time are included again when the payment is sent for approval again.

Allow self-assignment
Allows users to assign payment attestation to themselves.

Override rules
Allows administrators to override payment attestation rules and requirements.

Click Save changes when you are done.

How to attest a voucher or payment

The easiest way to get an overview of everything awaiting approval is via the Approvals module. Here all vouchers and payments pending attestation are shown in one list, with columns for description, recipient, approver, voucher, due date, and amount. You can filter by type and approver, and see the statuses Awaiting approval, Rejected, Forwarded, and Approved.

The list shows two types of tasks in the VOUCHER column:

  • Voucher for attestation – a voucher (e.g. invoice) waiting to be attested.

  • Payment for attestation – a payment waiting for attestation. No voucher link is shown as long as the payment has not been approved.

To approve from the Approvals module:

  1. Open the voucher or payment from the list.

  2. Click Attest.

  3. The voucher or payment gets the status Approved (if you are the only required approver) or waits for the next approver.

Note! The payment cannot be signed or sent to the bank until all required approvers have approved. Until then, the voucher shows the status Awaiting approval from [number] under the Payment section.

In the payment list (Bank → Payments → Awaiting approval), payments waiting for voucher attestation are shown with the status Awaiting approval and the subtext Awaiting voucher approval. The Only payments ready for signing toggle is always visible, but only has an effect when attestation is enabled — turn it on to hide payments that are not ready and only see those that can be signed.

Common errors and misunderstandings

"One of" and "All" – an important distinction

Under Fixed approvers, you choose whether one of the selected approvers is sufficient, or whether all must approve. This is the setting most often misconfigured.

If you have set up two approvers and selected "One of", it is sufficient for one to approve — the other will not see anything to attest, and the payment or voucher proceeds after the first approval.

If both must approve, you must select "All".

Note: If you change this setting, it only applies to new attestation tasks — payments already sent for attestation are not affected.

Do not set up payment users as approvers

Users who have the right to send payments to the bank and sign with BankID should not be set up as approvers.

Attestation is an internal pre-approval — not the payment itself. A user who attests approves that a payment is correct, but the money has not been sent. It is only when someone with payment rights confirms and signs with BankID that the payment actually goes out.

Common consequence: A user with payment rights attests and believes they have paid. The payment is still waiting for BankID signing. Accounting sees that the payment is stuck in "Awaiting approval" and sends it again — which can lead to a duplicate payment.

Are you using bank integration? Internal attestation and bank signing are two independent layers

With bank integration there are two separate approval layers — these are independent of each other and should not be confused:

1. Internal attestation in Catacloud (under Administration → Module settings → Bank → Attestation): An internal pre-check that takes place before the payment is sent to the bank. The number of approvers is set and managed in Catacloud.

2. Bank signing: The actual number of signatures required by the bank is fetched automatically from the bank agreement — not from the Catacloud attestation setting. Catacloud reads this when a payment is initiated. To change the number of bank approvals, contact us — it cannot be adjusted directly in Catacloud.

The two layers are independent. You can have internal attestation without bank signing, bank signing without internal attestation, or both combined.

Note: Changes to the number of bank signings only apply to new payments — payments that have already been created retain the number that applied when they were created.

Can the approver not be the same person who created the payment?
Some bank agreements require that the approver is a different person from the one who created the payment. If that is the case, Catacloud will display an information message and the payment will remain pending until another user logs in and approves it.

When should you contact us?

Contact support and specify the company, the voucher type or payment in question, and what you have tried, if:

  • A user cannot see the attestation button even though attestation is enabled.

  • A voucher is stuck in "Awaiting attestation" after everyone has approved.

  • Payments are stuck in "Awaiting approval" after they have been paid in the online bank.

  • You are unsure whether you should change the bank agreement or set up attestation in Catacloud.

  • You want to change the number of required bank approvals in the integration.

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