## Processing Approvals

This chapter provides an overview of approval processing.

### Understanding Approval Processing

The company might require you to obtain approval for the items or services that you purchase. After you enter a purchase order, subcontract order, requisition, or blanket order, and so on, you can require that the proper authorities approve the order before the system processes it. This approval eliminates the unauthorized purchase of items.

The orders that you enter might require approval from different persons, based on the department in which you work or the amount of purchases that you want to make. You must set up approval routes to specify the persons who are responsible for approving orders. You can then assign those routes to orders.

If you originate orders, you can check the current status of an order. The status indicates the person from whom the order is awaiting approval and the persons who have already approved the order. You receive a message when an order is fully approved or rejected.

If you are responsible for approving orders, you can review all orders awaiting approval and select orders to approve or reject. You can provide explanations for approving or rejecting an order.

When you set up the purchasing cycle, you must determine which order types (purchase orders, subcontract orders, requisitions, and so forth) require approval. For each order type, you must set up order activity rules to include the approval process.

The system maintains historical information about order approvals in the Held Orders table (F4209).

See Also

Working with Approval Routes

Working with Orders Awaiting Approval

Setting Up Order Activity Rules