Purchase Orders Approvals

Purchase Order Approvals are used when approval is required to place orders, i.e. purchasing amount restrictions. You can use the threshold method, which only requires one approver, or you can create Hierarchical Approvals which uses multiple approvers.

Using either method will require you to select the approval method under Global Options and follow the specific setup steps for each options’ setup.

Setting up PO Approvals

Threshold PO Approval

This method allows you to use up to four different approval “Ranks” based on monetary value to determine whose approval is required. You can also set up the ability to allow purchase orders to increase by a certain amount once the approval has been given, bypassing the need to go through the approval process again.

1. Start by selecting the first store you want to set up using the drop-down menu.
   
2. Next, use the check box for Rank 1 Approvals.
   
3. Set up the Purchase Order threshold amounts.
   
4. Determine if you need additional ranks and repeat the above two steps.
   
5. Once finished, you will need to navigate to Employee Setup to determine who can request PO Approval and who can grant PO Approval.
   

Note: Users cannot approve a purchase order that they requested approval for.

Hierarchical PO Approval

Hierarchical PO Approvals use an emailed, ranked system in lieu of a monetary threshold. This feature uses the Yellow Dog API to send emails to required people, and they can accept or reject the PO through a web portal. Email addresses are set in the Employees section in Yellow Dog, so everyone who will be approving POs must have an employee login set up, even if they do not use Yellow Dog. The employee requesting approval will receive notifications upon approval or rejection, so they will need to have their email address assigned to their user as well.

1. Start by setting the Purchase Order Approval Method to Hierarchy in System Setup/Options/Global.                                                                                                                                                             
   
2. Build Employee Roles. This will determine who gets emails, and in which order they receive them. ​*Approval Administrator is a default role included in the system. This role is intended to allow an admin to log in and approve POs without being in the hierarchy structure or receiving emails.*  
3. Assign the Employees to their roles.
   
1. Note: Employees can have different roles in different stores, if needed.
   
4. Build Store Approval Types.
   
1. Different store types can have different hierarchies of approval.
   
2. A backup notification role can be set here as well, for redundancy.                                                                                                                                                                                                                               
   
5. Set the Stores to their appropriate Approval Types.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
   
6. Configure the PO Approval Setup for each store type. This is where the roles are sequenced for approvals, per Store Approval Type.
   

Creating and Approving a PO

Follow the steps above to create a purchase order. Committing will not be an option if Approval is required. Instead, the Request PO Approval button will be available. Select Request Approval, then Save & Close the PO.

Once a Purchase Order has been approved by everyone that is required, you will be able to reopen and Commit the PO. 

To Approve a PO Using Threshold

When someone with Approval access logs in, Yellow Dog will open to the Purchase Order Approvals list. You can always access this list in the Purchasing module as well.

From the Purchase Order Approvals list, you can either select the PO and click Approve or Reject, or you can open the PO and approve or reject it from there.

• If you choose to reject the PO, the system will prompt you to indicate a reason for rejection.
  • Once it is saved and closed, the PO will disappear from the Approval list, but it will still be open in the Purchase Order list.
    
• If you choose to approve the PO, it will ask you to Commit the PO.
  • Once committed, the PO will then appear as Ordered in the Purchase Order screen.
    

To Approve a PO Using Hierarchy

When a PO has been requested for approval, an email will be sent to any users assigned to the first approval tier.

Following the link in the email, the approver will go to a web page to review, then approve or reject the request.

Note that although multiple users may be assigned to the same tier, a single PO can only be approved or rejected once per tier.

Once the Purchase Order has been approved by one person in the first tier, an email is sent to all users assigned to the second tier, and so on until either the PO Approval Request has been rejected at any point, or it has been fully approved by someone in each tier as configured for that particular store.

When the Purchase Order Approval request has been either rejected or fully approved, the original requester will receive an email notification.

The current approval status can also be viewed from the Approvals button in the Purchase Order editor.

The PO can now be committed.