Managing approvers who have left

There may be instances where a purchase order/requisition has been posted and the approver/authoriser for that document subsequently leaves or goes on long-term sick.

If this is the case, you can change the authoriser on the cost centre or other applicable ledger, and repoll the document to send the order to a new approver for authorisation.

The term repoll refers to resending a document through the IRIS Financials approval workflow, i.e. re-sending for authorisation.

There are several steps required for this process:

Step 1: Is the new approver already a user in the IRIS Financials system?

If the user already exists in the system, skip to step 2. If not, ensure that a replacement approver has been added as a new user as described in Adding Users to a User Group.

Step 2: Set/check the authorisation details for the new approver (if required)

If the replacement approver is not an existing approver, you need to set their authorisation details, such as approval limits. For more information, refer to Setting Authorisation Details and Limits for an Approver.

Step 3: Change the approver on the applicable cost centre/ledger(s)

This process determines whether the user can approve requisitions, purchase orders (or both), and to what level (based on the approval limits previously set). It is important to ensure that the approver is assigned to all required cost centre/ledgers. For more information, refer to Assigning Approvers to Cost Centres or Assigning Approvers to Fixed Asset and Trip Accounts.

Step 4: Mark the absent approver as on holiday (optional)

This is a recommended step. Marking the absent approver as on holiday captures any purchasing documents relating to a cost centre or ledger that you may not have changed the approver for (as described in the previous step). For more information, refer to Managing Approver Holidays or Absences.

Step 5: Identify Purchasing documents awaiting authorisation

This is achieved by producing the Unauthorised Requisitions report and the Unauthorised Purchase Order report. This identifies purchasing documents that are waiting to be authorised and require action. For more information, refer to Checking for Unauthorised Purchasing Documents.

Step 6: Update the requisition or purchase order with the new approver

This is achieved by resending the applicable documents for approval using a process called repolling. For more information, please see Repolling Documents in IRIS Financials Purchasing.

You may find it useful to produce a list of cost centres/ledgers and their authorisers to help identify any other approvers that need adding or changing. For more information, refer toProducing a list of approvers and their authorisation limits.