Invoice Approval Guidelines

Expenditures to vendor agreement shall be easily identified by deliverable. The agency shall inform the vendor of expectations during invoicing for required backup documentation.

Back-up Documentation

Back-up documentation shall be consistent with GAAP, NMSA, NMAC, and Agency guidelines. Receipt attachments for expenditures during reimbursement requests for trips, if allowed, shall be attached during submission such as: Agency prior written approval, fuel, lodging, meals, map from Rand McNally TripMaker.

For Expenses

Program Manager Worksheet - $0 deliverable outlining what the contractor did in that month.

**Provide i.e., who provided training to who provided technical assistance. 

Projects in NMSTAR are configured with invoice approvers. The BHSD Forensics and all Claims projects are configured to Auto-Approve the invoices meaning there is no agency invoice approval required. Invoices for projects are configured to be generated on the 1^st and 16^th of each month at 12:01 a.m. 

Program Managers are required to carefully review and approve correct invoices to ensure providers are paid in a timely manner.  The Program Manager should ensure the services being billed fall within the SOW parameters: adhere to any frequency and dollar amount rules, contain adequate supporting documentation, and meet the SOW deliverable expectations. 

Program Managers can mark invoices for corrections if needed. An invoice should be marked for corrections when: the amount entered on a service does not match the amount on a supporting document/receipt, the provider invoice is not signed, the provider invoice does not contain dates for the appropriate service month, the service should not have been billed, or the incorrect fund source was billed in NMSTAR. Providers have 30 days to make and submit their corrections.

If corrections are not made within 30 days, the NMSTAR application will auto-deny the invoice and return the funds to the provider allocation or open fund pool depending on the project configuration for reuse. Program Managers are responsible for adding comments on the invoice indicating why it is marked for corrections and emailing the provider to initiate the corrections.

Program Managers can mark invoices as Denied if needed. An invoice should be marked as Denied when the services being billed do not fall within the SOW parameters and should not be paid. When an invoice is denied, the funds are returned to the provider allocation or open fund pool depending on the project configuration for reuse. 

Invoice Review: High Dollar Threshold

Projects in NMSTAR are configured with a high dollar threshold. Currently, all projects, except for Claims, are configured with a $60k threshold. Invoices generated over the threshold are automatically placed in the In Review status after agency approval. Unless a comment is present on the invoice from the Agency Program Manager stating that the billing amount has been reviewed and is approved, prior to payment, Falling Colors will reach out to the Program Manager requesting that the invoice be reviewed, and a comment inserted stating the billed amount is approved.

In order to not delay payment to providers for invoices over the current default of $60k, we request that Program Managers insert a comment on any invoice they review and approve over that threshold.

Agencies can also direct Falling Colors via a LOD to increase/decrease the High Dollar Threshold for a specific project(s).