Use Procurement BU and Bank as Change Request Approval Attributes

Using the procurement BU and bank attributes to author approval routing rules requires additional consideration as explained.

The bank accounts can be defined at any of the three levels: Supplier Header, Supplier Address, and Supplier Site. Use the procurement BU approval routing attribute to author approval rules that can route changes made to supplier site bank accounts based on the procurement BUs associated to the sites.

The procurement BU if used as an approval attribute in an approval routing rule won't be relevant to the bank accounts that are defined and changed at supplier header and supplier address level. In other words, the procurement BU approval attribute value (if used as part of a routing rule) is evaluated as blank or null for changes made to the bank accounts defined at supplier header and address levels. If you decide to author an approval routing rule that includes the procurement BU attribute as part of its condition, you must add additional approval routing rules that are evaluated to true so that appropriate approvals can be triggered if supplier header and supplier address level bank accounts are changed.

This implies that you must add at least one complementary approval rule that includes a condition to check for blank or null value of procurement BU (as illustrated in Option 2 ) if there's no other rule in the participant type that would evaluate to true and be triggered when bank accounts are changed at supplier header or address levels. This rule will be evaluated to true for bank account changes at these levels and ensure that changes are routed correctly. For instance, if you have rules in a participant type that check if suppliers belongs to specific supplier types, then at least one of these rules that use the supplier type approval attribute will be evaluated to true when bank account changes are submitted for approval regardless of the level at which the bank account is defined. This eliminates the need to have the complementary rule that would be evaluated to true when bank accounts are changed at supplier header and supplier address levels.

The example helps demonstrate some options you have to configure approval rules that would route changes made to bank accounts defined at supplier header and supplier address level.

Let us assume a buying organization has two procurement BUs: Vision Operations and Vision Services that suppliers can conduct business with. Here are the requirements for approval routing:

Changes made to bank accounts defined for a site that belongs to procurement BU: Vision Operations should be routed to the approval group: US Financial Approvers.
Changes made to bank accounts defined for a site that belongs to procurement BU: Vision Services should be routed to the approval group: UK Financial Approvers.
Changes made to bank accounts defined at supplier header or supplier address should be routed to approval group: Global Approvers.

An approval routing rule that routes changes to bank accounts defined at site levels based on the procurement BUs the sites belong to can be configured as follows:

This image displays the Bank Account Changes at Site Level for US based PRC BU Details.

Sample Approval Rule using Procurement BU for Site Level Bank Account Changes

You have these options to configure approval routing rules that would ensure changes made to bank accounts defined at supplier header and supplier address level are routed correctly.

Option 1: Using Bank Account Level in Approval Routing Condition

This option will use bank account level as part of the approval routing condition to ensure that changes made to bank accounts at supplier header and supplier address level are routed correctly.

This approval routing rule is triggered when the bank accounts defined at supplier header or supplier address are changed.

Approval Rule for Supplier Header and Address Level Bank Account Changes This approval routing rule that will be triggered when bank accounts defined at supplier header or supplier address are changed.

Approval Rule for Supplier Header and Address Level Bank Account Changes

Option 2: Checking for a Null Value of Procurement BU in Approval Routing Condition

This option illustrates an approval routing rule that's triggered when bank accounts defined at supplier header or supplier address levels are changed. The rule condition checks if the procurement BU value is blank or NULL, and will be evaluated to true if changes for bank accounts defined at supplier header or supplier addresses levels or both, are submitted for approval.

If required, an additional check can be included in this condition that would apply when the procurement BU isn't Vision Operations or Vision Services for any bank account change at site level. This additional check is optional and can be added only if your suppliers conduct business with other procurement BUs and you don't have specific routing requirements for those procurement BUs, but have specific routing requirements for Vision Operations and Vision Services.
This image displays the Approval Rule for Supplier Header and Address Level Bank Account Changes.

Approval Rule for Supplier Header and Address Level Bank Account Changes

Note: If you use bank as an approval attribute in an approval routing rule, ensure that you write a complementary rule that will be evaluated to true and get triggered when a bank account without a bank is changed, regardless of the level at which the bank account is defined. This only applies when changes to bank accounts without banks on them are submitted for approval.