Setting up Approvals

Approvals are part of the purchasing cycle and are not used within sales or movements. Before using approvals, the system must be configured to allow approvals to operate as required by your organization.

The following steps are required:

In Purchase Business Setup (PBS) > Purchase Approval, select the Approvals Checking option from: Order and Invoice Approvals In Use; Order Approvals In Use; Invoice Approval In Use; Approvals Not In Use.
Ensure that operator groups and data access groups are created as required for approvals, via User Manager. The data access groups must follow the approval levels required, for example, supervisor, manager, director, and so on.
Use Approval Tables (ATS) to set up the various approval level tables. There may be one or many approval tables. Define the criteria that needs to take place for approvals to operate.

Analysis codes may be used but are not mandatory.

Approvers may all be from different DAG's, or from the same group, or any combination.
Assign an approval table to a stage on a purchase type. Set the various flags on the purchase type as required. Approvals can be applied on order entry, order confirmation, invoice entry or invoice confirmation stages, that is, not the invoice matching or receipt note stages.
Decide how the orders and / or invoices are to be approved within the system.
- Control Desks - Set up any control desk filters required for displaying orders or invoices that need approving. There is a batch program that can approve multiple order/invoices.
- Purchase Order Entry and/or Purchase Invoice Entry - Use the action Approve or Approve Line depending on whether approvals are at a document (whole order/invoice level) or line level on the purchase type.
Set up the forms used for purchase orders or invoices. It is advisable to have the Approval Status field on the form so that users can see if the line has been approved or rejected.