Supervisors, Approvers, and Approval Limits
Use the Approval Routing feature to set up a hierarchy of supervisors and approvers who will approve purchase and expense transactions before they are processed.
Purchase approvals processes require that the Purchase Order preference for Approval Routing be disabled. To learn more, see Using Custom SuiteFlow Workflows for Approval Routing. Processes for expense approvals are the same regardless of the preference setting.
After a transaction is entered by or routed to an employee for approval, the employee’s record settings define which transactions require additional approval. These settings include the following:
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Supervisor – The employee’s direct supervisor
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Expense Limit – The amount the employee can expense without supervisor or approver approval
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Expense Approver – The person who approves the employee's expense reports. If no approver is selected, the supervisor approves expense reports. If an expense approver is selected, the supervisor is no longer part of the approval hierarchy
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Expense Approval Limit – The maximum amount an employee can approve on an expense report when specified as an approver for another employee
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Purchase Limit – The amount an employee can purchase without supervisor or approver approval
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Purchase Approver – The person who approves the employee's purchase requests. If no approver is selected, the supervisor approves purchase requests. If a purchase approver is selected, the supervisor is no longer part of the approval hierarchy
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Purchase Approval Limit – The maximum amount an employee can approve on a purchase request when specified as an approver for an employee
To learn how to enter employee records settings, see Entering Human Resources Information for an Employee.
For each employee, set an expense limit or purchase limit to determine the highest transaction amount the employee is allowed enter without requiring additional approval. Then, when the employee enters an expense report or purchase request with an amount below their limit, the transaction is automatically approved.
If the employee enters a transaction with a total amount that is higher than their limit, the transaction follows approval routing processes. The transaction is sent for approval by a supervisor or approver that has an approval limit greater than or equal to the amount of the transaction.
Employee limits and approval limits are enforced using the currency set on the employee record. If an employee enters a transaction in a foreign currency, the transaction total is first converted to the employee's currency and then compared to the defined limits.
Approval is sought based on the supervisor or approver identified on the employee's record until sufficient approval authority is found.
If sufficient authority is not found, an alert is displayed on the transaction.