How the purchasing authorisation process works

The procurement authorisation process for your establishment / organisation is defined using a workflow. By default, a standard workflow is provided as follows:

• up to three approvers can be defined for requisitions (if used).

• up to three approvers can be defined for purchase orders.

• you can choose to use a singleorders are authorised by individual approvers with applicable authorisation limits. For example, if the first approver has an authorisation limit of £1000 and the purchase order is above this limit, then authorisation is sought directly from the second approver (bypassing the first). or tieredOrders are authorised by each approver up to, and including the approver with the correct authorisation limit. For example, if the first approver has an authorisation limit of £1000 and the purchase order is above this limit, then approval is sought initially from the first approver and then sent to the second approver for authorisation. authorisation process.

• you can identify an alternative approver who can authorise documents in the absence of the usual approver.

• a purchase order can be attached to an email notifying that authorisation is required.

For each cost centre account, required approvers are set for requisitions and purchase orders as described in Assigning Approvers to Cost Centres. Approvers must exist as accounts on the USERS ledger.

Using standard workflow, the authorisation process typically works as follows:

1. When a requisition or order is posted, the system checks the cost centre account selected in the document. In the following example, Administration – Furniture and Equipment is the account.
   

2. The cost centre account is then checked to identify which approvers have been assigned to the cost centre in the Analysis Fields tab.
   

3. Each approver is then checked in the USERS ledger to identify their authorisation limits, as shown in the following graphic.
   

• Where a single approval workflow is in place, orders can be authorised by an individual approver with the applicable authorisation limits. Any approver with insufficient limits is ignored. In the previous example, Andrea Samuels is able to authorise this order as her limit is £12000.

• Where a tiered approval workflow is in place, orders must be authorised by all approvers up to and including the approver with the correct authorisation limit. In the previous example, any other assigned approvers with lower authorisation limits must also approve the order.