Overview
- Activating automatic return
- Disabling return during invoice review
- Managing the contractor's contact person
- Resending the approved invoice
- Sent message
After completing the invoice checking process, the verified invoice can be automatically forwarded to the contractor to provide a transparent record of the review results. The feedback indicates whether the invoice was approved, partially reduced, or rejected, and may include notes on required corrections.
This step ensures that all stakeholders are informed about the current processing status and can respond to any necessary adjustments. The invoice return thus marks the conclusion of the factual invoice review and represents a key component of the overall invoice workflow.
This article explains how to enable the automatic invoice return in Alasco, when it is triggered, and what information is transmitted in the process.
Activating automatic return
To use the automatic feedback feature for approved invoices, you must first activate it either in the project settings or when creating a new project.
To do so, select the project and click on the “Project settings” option in the navigation bar on the left side of the screen.
In the “General” tab, click the Edit button to enter edit mode. In the “Workflows & Emails” section, check the box next to “Automated e-mail to contractors after invoice approval.” This option is also available when creating a new project.
Click the Save button to apply the changes.
Once this setting is active, an automatic email will be scheduled to be sent to the contractor’s designated main contact after the final approval of the invoice.
Note:
Please note that this change only applies to new invoices uploaded to the project after the setting has been modified. Any invoices that were already under review before the change will not be sent automatically.
Disabling return during invoice review
If you receive an invoice for which the contractor should not receive an email after final approval, you can disable and re-enable this feature individually for each invoice.
During the invoice approval step, you will see the button “Contractor notification scheduled” displayed on the right below the approval dialog — provided that the option has been activated in the project as described above and the invoice was uploaded to Alasco after the activation.
Click the “Contractor notification scheduled” button and uncheck the box to prevent the automatic return email from being sent to the contractor for this specific invoice.
The recipient and their email address will also be displayed here. If you need to update the contact person, click on the corresponding option.
This will open the contractor’s detail page in a new tab, where you can edit the contact person’s information using the Edit button in the top right corner.
Click Save to apply your changes. You may need to refresh the invoice checking tab to ensure that your updates are reflected during the invoice checking process.
Note:
Please note that the invoice return is always sent only to the main contact person. If multiple contact persons are listed in the contractor, the main contact person can be identified by the “Main” label.
Missing contact person for the contractor
If you have activated the feature in the project settings but no contact person has yet been assigned to the contractor, the button “Notify contractor E-mail missing” will appear on the right below the review dialog during the factual invoice review.
In this case, click the button and then select “Update contact person” in the window that opens. This will open the contractor’s detail page in a new tab. Use the Edit button in the top right corner to add the contact person’s information.
Resending approved invoices
The notification to the contractor is always sent after the final approval step of the invoice workflow — that is, after the final approval.
If, during the payment step, you realize that the invoice was sent to the wrong contact, you can move the invoice back to the last approval step, provided that the payment step is enabled in your workflow.
In the approval step, you will now see the button “Notify contractor – Sent” displayed on the right below the review dialog.
Click the button and then select “Update contact person” in the window that opens. This will open the contractor’s detail page in a new tab, where you can modify the contact person’s information using the Edit button in the top right corner.
Once the invoice is approved again, a new email will be sent to the contractor’s current main contact person.
Note:
Please note that an email is sent to the registered contact person after every final approval. If you return the invoice from the payment step for any reason other than the one described above and then approve it again, make sure to disable the sending option if you do not want to trigger another email dispatch.
Sent message
After the final approval of the invoice, the designated contact person of the contractor receives the following email from Alasco. In addition to the invoice number and invoice date in the message text, the email also includes the approved invoice, the Alasco invoice cover sheet, and all attached files as attachments.