Choosing who approves a purchase order or requisition
An approval rule, or each of its levels, names its approver one way: a person, an employee, a position, a role, the cost center’s manager or the reporting line. Only the field for that choice is needed, and every condition is optional.
Purchase order approval rules (Supply Chain → Requisitions & Orders → PO Approval Rules), requisition approval rules (Supply Chain → Procurement Control → Requisition Approval Rules) and the approval levels under either (Approval Levels) all say who approves in the same way. Choose one answer in Who approves — Who signs, on a requisition rule — and the form asks only for the one field that answer needs.
The six ways to name an approver
| Who approves | What else to fill in | Who decides |
|---|---|---|
| A named person (their sign-in) — no HRMS needed | Person | That person. Anyone who signs in to this company can be chosen, and they decide it from My approvals whatever modules they have. Use this when you do not keep employees in HRMS. |
| An employee (HRMS) | Employee | That employee. One with no sign-in yet is still the approver, and the document waits for them. |
| Whoever holds a position (HRMS) | Position | Whoever holds that position in HRMS when the document is sent. When somebody else takes the post, new documents go to them with nothing to change on the rule. |
| Anyone holding a role | Role | Any one of the people who hold the role. |
| The cost center’s manager | Nothing | The manager of the cost center the document is charged to: its manager in HRMS or, where none is recorded, the cost center’s Responsible person. |
| The reporting line of whoever raised it (HRMS) | How many levels up; optionally an employee and a role to fall back on | The raiser’s manager, then that manager’s manager, for as many levels as you say (up to 5). |
A field that belongs to a different choice is not shown, and is not needed. If the one field your choice does need is left empty, the save is refused and the message appears at that field.
The cost center’s manager
Open the cost center under Accounting → Controlling → Cost Centers. Where your company keeps HRMS, the manager recorded there is the approver. Where it does not, fill in Responsible person — anyone who signs in to the company — and they approve whenever a rule says "the cost center’s manager" and no HRMS manager is recorded.
Conditions are optional
Everything above Who approves on the rule only narrows which documents it covers, and all of it may be left empty:
- Only for cost center — documents charged to that cost center, on the header or on any line.
- An amount — documents at or above it, judged in the company’s own currency.
- Supplier, organizational unit, and on a requisition the kind, category, department or warehouse.
A rule with no conditions at all covers every document of its kind.
Seeing who, and why
- The rules lists have an Approver column that says who, in one sentence, whichever way the rule names them, beside a Cost center column.
- The document’s own Approvals panel, and the approvals lists, say who has each signature and which rule asked for it.
- My approvals shows each person what is waiting for them; see My approvals.
Approval Levels, in the order they sign
Supply Chain → Procurement Control → Approval Levels lists the levels by kind (requisition or purchase order), then by the rule’s priority, then by rule code, then by level. Where two rules apply, the first rule’s levels come first — for example Head of Department, HR, then Vice-Chancellor and Registrar — rather than every rule’s level 1 together. Rule order shows the rule’s priority and Signs in turn shows where that level falls in the whole chain. Only the list order changed: who signs, and in what order, is exactly as the rules say.
Rules made before this change keep working as they were. Open one and the form shows only the fields its choice needs.