Purchase order approval software and workflows
Approval should happen before the money is committed, not after the invoice lands. Procurer routes every purchase request through the right people automatically, based on amount, department and, from Business, category, project and supplier. The approver sees the request, the quote and the remaining budget on one screen, and the purchase order is created only after the last approval.
Approval rules instead of email chains
In most growing companies, purchase approval lives in email threads and chat messages. Nobody can say who approved a 12 000 USD laptop order, the approval arrives after the order was placed, and finance learns about it from the card statement. Procurer replaces that with rules you set once.
- A rule has a condition and an approver: "Operations requests over 1 000 USD go to the Operations manager", "anything over 10 000 USD also goes to the Controller".
- Approvers can be a named person, a role (department head, finance) or the requester's manager from the user directory.
- Steps run in order. Step two only starts after step one approves, and a rejection returns the request to the requester with the reason.
- Every decision is recorded with name, time and comment in the audit log.
- Delegation covers vacations: an approver hands their queue to a colleague for a date range.
A purchase approval workflow, step by step
Take a 200 person company with a simple approval policy: department manager over 1 000 USD, Controller over 5 000 USD, CFO over 25 000 USD. A marketing coordinator requests 18 monitors from a preferred reseller at 340 USD each, 6 120 USD in total.
The request goes to the Marketing manager first, because it is over 1 000 USD.
The manager sees the total, the attached quote and the Marketing budget: 48 000 USD for the quarter, 31 500 USD spent or committed, 16 500 USD left before this request.
After the manager approves, the Controller gets it, because it is over 5 000 USD. The CFO is skipped, because the total is under 25 000 USD.
When the Controller approves, the purchase order is created with a PO number and emailed to the reseller. The 6 120 USD becomes a commitment against the Marketing budget immediately.
The coordinator follows every step on the request page instead of asking in chat. For the reasoning behind thresholds like these, read how to set purchase approval thresholds.
Approval steps and conditional rules by plan
On Team (149 USD per month), rules route by amount and department, with up to 2 approval steps per request. That covers the common "manager, then finance" pattern. From Business (299 USD per month), steps are unlimited and rules can use more conditions:
- Category: IT hardware and software can add an IT security review step, legal services can add the General Counsel.
- Amount: separate thresholds per department, so a 3 000 USD request in Facilities goes further than the same amount in Engineering.
- Project: requests coded to a client project go to the project lead before finance.
- Supplier: a new supplier, or one flagged for review, adds a procurement check.
Business also brings approvals from Slack and Microsoft Teams: the approver sees the request summary and approves or rejects without opening the app. Enterprise adds custom approval matrices and segregation of duties rules, so the person who requested cannot approve, and the person who approved cannot also record the receipt. See pricing for every limit.
Budget checked on the request, not on the invoice
Every approver sees the budget impact next to the amount: budget, spent, committed, this request and what is left. A request that would push the department over budget is flagged in the approval screen, and from Business a rule can route over-budget requests to finance automatically. That is the difference between an approval process and a rubber stamp. More on budget control software.
From approved request to purchase order
Approval is not the end of the workflow. The approved request becomes a purchase order with the same lines, the supplier receives it by email as a PDF, and the PO stays linked to its approvals. When the invoice arrives, the approval history is part of what finance sees during the three way match. If someone edits the PO afterwards (a price increase, an extra line), the change can send it back through approval. The full cycle is covered on purchase order software and purchase requisition software.
What is purchase order approval software?
It is software that routes purchase requests to the right approvers based on rules, records every decision and creates the purchase order only after approval. It replaces approval by email, where decisions are hard to find and often come after the purchase.
How many approval steps can we have?
Team includes up to 2 approval steps per request. Business, Scale and Enterprise include unlimited steps, and Enterprise adds custom approval matrices and segregation of duties rules.
Can approvers approve from Slack or Microsoft Teams?
Yes, from the Business plan. The approver gets the request summary with amount, supplier and budget impact and approves or rejects in the message.
Can different departments have different approval rules?
Yes. Rules by department and amount are on every plan. From Business, rules can also use category, project and supplier, so each department can have its own thresholds and extra steps.
What happens when an approver is away?
The approver delegates their queue to a colleague for a date range. Delegated approvals are recorded under the delegate's name with a note of the delegation.
Approve before you spend
Try the demo to route a request through a real approval chain, then create your account and set your own rules.