How to route a purchase order for approval

Approval is a second pair of eyes on a purchase order in What are suppliers and purchase orders?. It is set per order and off by default, and an order that requires it cannot move into a placed stage such as Order placed until somebody signs it off. Decisions are made on Buying › Approvals.

Before you start

Three rows in Settings › Permissions decide who does what, and all three start at lead. See How to set who can do what.

• Requiring approval and submitting an order need Edit purchase orders and the buying calendar and Change stock, receiving and store settings.
• Approving or refusing needs Approve purchase orders.
• Turning approval back off needs Approve purchase orders. For anyone else the switch is greyed, and hovering it says turning approval off needs the same standing as granting one.

That difference is on purpose. Anybody who writes orders can add a check, and only an approver can remove one.

How do you require approval on an order?

Open the order and find the Approval card under Properties. Turn on Require approval before sending.

It applies to that order alone and changes nothing for anybody else. Use it on the orders where the money warrants a second look rather than on every order.

How do you submit one?

Type a note in Add a note for the approver (optional) on the same card, then press Submit for approval. The order moves to Awaiting approval, and the people who can approve it get a notification.

Write the note. "Revised down to six weeks of cover on the merino polos, Portside Mills held last season's price" is the difference between a decision and a guess. The approver sees it in their queue, and the card shows who asked and when.

While a request is waiting, the Require approval before sending switch stays as it is. The request clears when somebody approves or refuses it.

How do you approve or refuse?

Open Buying › Approvals, headed "What's waiting on your decision." Each row shows the PO number and vendor, the amount, who asked and when, and their note. Press Approve or Refuse there, or click through to the order and use the same buttons on its Approval card.

Refuse asks for a reason in Why are you refusing this?, and Refuse it stays greyed until you write one. The reason is shown on the order in red and goes to the person who asked.

"No, because we already have eight weeks of cover" tells somebody what to change, where "no" tells them nothing.

What happens after a decision?

The person who asked gets a notification either way: Your purchase order was approved or Your purchase order was refused. A refusal carries your reason.

An approved order moves to Approved and can go on to Order placed. A refused order stays in Awaiting approval, and Submit for approval comes back so it can be changed and sent again.

What if the order changes after it is approved?

The approval stops covering it. Any edit to the order, or adding, removing or changing a line, sets it aside, and the Approval card reads "This order changed after it was approved, so the approval no longer covers it" (or "The lines on this order changed…").

Moving the order's stage and closing it do not count as edits. To get a fresh sign-off, move the order back to Draft, then press Submit for approval again with a note saying what changed.

Why can I not approve my own order?

Because somebody else has to sign off a request you made, or an order you created. That holds for every role, admins included, so a second person always looks at the order.

Your own requests still appear in your queue, without buttons, reading You raised this or You created this record. Have a colleague who holds Approve purchase orders decide them, or give that permission to somebody else in Settings › Permissions.

What happens if two approvers press at once?

The second is told it has already been decided. Nothing is recorded twice.

How do you cover approvals while you are away?

Set Out of office in User menu › Account settings, naming a colleague and an end date. Until then your stand-in can decide approvals with your standing. See How to hand over your work while you are away.

The own-order rule still applies to them: your stand-in cannot approve a request they made or an order they created.

Can the Agent ask for approval?

Yes. The Agent can suggest submitting an order for approval, and once a person approves that suggestion, the request lands in the queue like any other.

Undoing that change from History › Updates withdraws the request, as long as nobody has decided it yet. See How to approve, refuse or undo a suggested change.

Does anything else wait in Approvals?

Yes, stock count sign-offs. A workspace can ask a second person to sign off a count before it posts to Shopify, using Ask a second person to sign off a count before it posts under Count settings on Selling › Counts. See How to count your stock.

Each one reads Stock count: followed by the count's name, and links to the count. Deciding it needs Approve stock counts and post them to Shopify, and neither the person who asked nor the person who started the count can sign it.

Everyone who could sign is told A stock count needs your sign-off. The person who asked hears Your stock count sign-off was approved or Your stock count sign-off was refused, which opens the count. A change to the count's review after it is signed withdraws the sign-off, and somebody has to ask again.

What does an empty queue look like?

It reads Nothing is waiting on you, with a link to your purchase orders.

A request whose purchase order has since been deleted reads Purchase order (deleted) rather than vanishing. An order left in Awaiting approval for more than three days carries a Waiting on sign-off badge on the Board and the List, per How to find late orders and plan revisions.