Approval process for purchase orders [in-depth guide]
Guide contents: Setup | Choosing an Approver | Send for Approval | Troubleshooting | Resources
A PO can be approved by anyone who has the purchasing limit. You can set different approval limits for each person to control the maximum amount that a person can approve.
Setup
There is no set approval process like there is for client & vendor invoices. This is intentional as there should be checks & balances in this part of the system.
From an employee's record, click Accounting > Order limits tab.
The money value entered here will determine the total (not line) PO amount this user can approve.
If zero or blank, then the user cannot approve any orders of that type.
Choosing an approver
To choose who this order will be sent to for approval.
Open the order and click on Settings.
Next to approver will be a drop-down list you can choose from.
NOTE: While the default is 'anyone approved for this limit', every user with a higher than zero limit will show in this list, even if they do not have a high enough limit to approve this.
Send for approval
Once your PO is ready to be sent for approval, make sure it's saved & click Submit for approval at the top of the PO.
- This will send an email and show in the My items to approve widget, for any user with a high enough limit to approve this order.
- While you can choose a specific person, if you do choose a user that does not have a high enough limit, then it will be sent to anyone with a high enough limit upon sending for approval.
- The person who created the order will receive an email once it has either been approved or rejected.
- And while a user might not be able to approve a PO, if you are the one who submitted it, you can still unapprove it to make changes and resubmit.
Troubleshooting
No one received an email, nor does anyone see the PO in their My items to approver widget?
If this is the case, then no user(s) have been set with a high enough limit. To resolve this, give at least one user a high enough limit in their employee record, and then the PO will be available for them to approve.
How can I make all POs go to one person for approval?
If your process is to have all POs go to one persona for approval, then only give the one user a high enough limit to be able to catch all POs entered and submitted.
Resources
Employee setup [in-depth guide]