Approval Systems

The Electronic Approval System allows one or more designated individuals to approve PO's.

When the Electronic Approval System is turned on and a PO has been authorized, "APPROVED" appears in the upper right hand corner of the Main Purchase Order Screen. If a PO is not approved, the status indicator does not appear. Additionally, if a PO is not approved, the following statement appears on the printed PO in large, bold lettering: "NOT VALID: THIS PO HAS NOT BEEN APPROVED!"

1. The first, which is adequate for many small businesses, is no approval. You simply send off the PO as is, and the vendor fulfills your order without any special approval requirements.

2. The second requires a signature. To set-up the signature method, select FILE >> PRINT PO and click on "More Options." You'll find an option which allows you to print PO's with a "signature required" line on the PO.

3. The third option for AnyPO III users is to send an email to a director or a person who can approve PO's. The director sends a reply email indicating whether the PO has been approved or not. This method is described in more detail here: Email Approval.

4. The fourth is an Electronic Approval System. In this system, you have two choices:

•	Method A: In Method A, you select one or more individuals who have the authority to approve PO's. When they log into AnyPO, a special "Approve" button is available to them. They can either approve the PO or reject it. You can also indicate whether PO's require approval by more than one person.

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Method B: (Level III) In this method, you can set up levels of approval authority. One or more individuals at each level would need to approve a PO before it attains final approval. You decide how many levels are needed (up to 5 levels are available), and you can set the number individuals required for approval at each level.

Level III users have access to an additional feature that can be combined with either Method A or B. You can use the internal email system to send one or more approvers a special attachment. When the attachment is clicked, AnyPO is automatically opened. A special approval dialog box opens and the director is immediately taken to the PO that needs approval. If the PO is acceptable, they click the "Approve" button: More Information.

The rest of the information in this chapter addresses the fourth type of approval system, the Electronic Approval System.

In order to use the Electronic Approval System, you must set-up a program administrator. To do so, select SECURITY >> SET-UP PROGRAM ADMINISTRATOR (More Information).

Once you've set-up the program administrator, you'll be able to access the Electronic Approval System dialog box. To access it, select SECURITY >> ELECTRONIC APPROVAL SYSTEM (shown below).

To turn on the system, place a checkmark beside "Use electronic approval system." Below is an explanation of the two electronic approval methods:

In Method A, indicate how many individuals are required to approve PO's. For example, let's say you have three individuals with the authority to approve PO's. (An individual is given authority to approve PO's when you set-up their user log-in.) If one of the three can approve a PO, then you would indicate one (1) in this field. If two of the three must approve PO's, then you would indicate two (2) in this field. You can have up to five required individuals.

If you require two (2) or more individuals to approve a PO, you may wish to give one or more approvers the ability to override the minimum number. For example, you may wish to give the company's financial officer or purchasing department manager the ability to approve PO's without meeting the minimum. The way to do this is to add the number "1" to the end of their log-in initials.

For example, let's say that three individuals are required for PO approval. And let's say the company's financial officer has RDW1 for her log-in initials. It would normally take three individuals with approval authority to approve a PO. However, only one approval would be required if the company's financial officer approved the PO (because of the "1" in initials). If you don't want to use the override option, don't use "1" or any other number in the log-in initials.

Finally, if desired, you can indicate the amount required for approval. If all PO's require approval, leave the amount at zero (0.00). If approval is only required for PO amounts of 200 or greater, enter in 200.00, and so on.

You can have AnyPO automatically locked a PO as soon as it is approved. To do so, place a checkmark beside: "Either Method: Automatically lock PO's as soon as they are approved."

One last option is available to Level III users that send PO's to vendors via email. AnyPO will trigger a warning if you try to send an unapproved PO as an attachment to a vendor. When the warning message comes up you can either cancel out - or go ahead and send the PO anyway. (Some businesses may occasionally send an advanced, unapproved PO if they wish the vendor to check on product availability or review specifications before the final approved PO is sent.) If this is not the case with your business, and if desired, you can go one step further and instruct the program to not allow the sending of PO to a vendor until it's been approved. That's done by placing a checkmark beside: "Don't allow PO to be emailed if not approved."

If you will be using Method B, start by placing a checkmark beside: "Use Method B."

In this method, the PO approval process moves along the lines of the company's hierarchy.

To use this method, you assign levels to the individuals who have the ability to approve PO's. The levels are assigned when the user's log-in is set-up. To indicate level, add a number to the end of the login initials, i.e. RDW2 is a Level 2 approver, KRD3 is a Level 3 approver, ADMN1 is a Level 1 approver, and so on.

Level 1 is the highest level. Even though you might configure the program so that it requires two or three individuals at different levels to approve a PO, it only requires one person with Level I clearance to approve a PO. Level 1 is usually reserved for the chief financial officer or a company owner - or some other individual with a high level of responsibility.

Level 1 is a practical and useful option. Sometimes certain purchases need quick approval. Other purchases may originate from company owners or officers, and the normal approval pathway is not appropriate. This allows you to obtain final approval in quick and timely manner. Using Level 1 is optional. If don't wish to use it, don't create any initials with "1" at the end.

Let's say that a PO is created by a clerical worker. The clerical worker can not approve the PO, and he sends it onto his department manager. The manager approves it (using AnyPO's electronic approval system), but it's not fully approved until the purchasing director approves it.

In this first example, there are two levels of approval: the manager and the purchasing director. The company likely has several departmental managers. They can approve PO's, but the final approval always rests in the hands of the purchasing director. Two approvals are required, but one approval must come from the department level and the other approval must come from the purchasing director.

From AnyPO's perspective, the department manager is a Level 3 approver. The purchasing director is a Level 2 approver. (Level 1 is reserved for individuals with the highest approval ability as described above.)

Since it only takes one approval at each level, you would set things up like the following:

Once again, we'll start with the PO created by a clerical worker. The clerical worker passes it onto to her department manager. The department manager approves it and passes it to the budget office. The budget office approves it and passes it onto the purchasing director.

In this example, there are three levels of approval: the department manager, the budget office and the purchasing director. Three approvals are required, but one approval must come from the department level, the budget level and the last from the purchasing director.

In this case, the department manager is a Level 4 approver. The budget office is a Level 3 approver. And the purchasing director is a Level 2 approver. (As mentioned above, Level 1 is reserved for individuals with the highest approval ability.)

It takes one approval at each level, and, thus, you would set things up like the following:

As you know, you can use Level 1 to override the normal approval process. With Method B, you also have a second way of overriding the normal process. It uses Level 2 approvers. You can indicate that one or more (generally, it will be two or more) Level 2 users have the ability to approve a PO. For example, let's say that you enter a "2" in this field. That means if two Level 2 users approve the PO, then Level 3 and Level 4 approvals are not necessary. Keep this at zero (0) if you don't intend use it.

As with the first method, you can indicate the amount required for approval. If all PO's require approval, leave the amount at zero (0.00). If approval is only required for PO amounts of 200 or greater, enter in 200.00, and so on.

You can also have AnyPO automatically locked a PO as soon as it is approved. To do so, place a checkmark beside: "Either Method: Automatically lock PO's as soon as they are approved."

One last option is available for users that send PO's to vendors via email. AnyPO will trigger a warning if you try to send an unapproved PO as an attachment to a vendor. When the warning message comes up you can either cancel out - or go ahead and send the PO anyway. (Some businesses may occasionally send an advanced, unapproved PO if they wish the vendor to check on product availability or review specifications before the final approved PO is sent.) If this is not the case with your business, and if desired, you can go one step further and instruct the program to not allow the sending of PO to a vendor until it's been approved. That's done by placing a checkmark beside: "Don't allow PO to be emailed if not approved."

Note that if you have approval levels - and you use emails to initiate approvals (as described below), AnyPO currently does not have a way for one approver to notify another approver that he or she has approved a PO. AnyPO, can however, notify the originators of the request that their PO's have been approved. If the ability for one approver to notify another approver would be helpful to you, drop us a line and we'll work on implementing it.

Once the approval system is decided upon, you'll want a way of notifying approvers when PO's are ready. One way is to vocally inform the manager or director that a PO is ready to approve. When convenient, the manager starts the program and approves the PO. The easiest way, however, to notify approvers is to use AnyPO's internal email program. You can configure AnyPO to send an email with a special encoded attachment which automatically opens the AnyPO program on the manager's computer and goes directly the PO that requires approving.

The program can configured so that a head purchasing office receives requisitions (or purchase orders) from one or more departments. The final processing of the requisitions or PO's generally occurs at the head office level. More Information.

When the program is configured for a Department - Head Office Set-up, the approval system is separate for each department. That allows each department (under the supervision of the head office) to indicate how many and which person(s) have the ability to approve requisitions. Departments can also set-up levels of approval if needed. To configure the approval system for a department, use one of the department's computers and log-in as either the department administrator or the head office administrator. Then otherwise follow the procedures on this page.

The head office may or not utilize an approval system. If it does, it is separate from the departments. This allows the head office to determine how many and who can approve requisitions. To set-up the approval system for the head office, use one of the head office computers and log-in as the head office administrator. Then follow the procedures on this page.

The Administrator has the capability to approve PO's, but if you use levels (Method 2), you must specifically assign a level to the administrator. Note that you don't necessarily have to include the administrator among those who can authorize PO's. The use of the use of the Administrator as an approver is up to you.

In addition to the administrator, you can also designate other individuals who have approval authority. Each of these individuals are set-up in AnyPO as "users."

If you have a single user system (not networked), you can set-up one additional person (other than the administrator) to approve PO's.

On a networked system, you can set-up one person who can approve PO's on any workstation. (This person is known as having global approval status.). Additionally, you can set-up as many individuals as you have workstations.

AnyPO Single User Program (Not Networked). To set-up an individual with approval authority on a Single User version of AnyPO, select SECURITY >> SET-UP USER ACCESS. (You'll need to be the administrator to access this area of the program.) Place a checkmark beside: "Yes. Set-up a user for this computer." Enter the rest of the information required for the user.

Be sure to enter the user's initials. In the example, below, you can tell that Method B (above) is has been chosen for the approval method. Notice that Katherine O'Brian has "3" at the end of her initials, and that means she is a Level 3 approver.

Finally, at the bottom of the dialog box, place a checkmark in: "Allow this user to approve PO's" (illustrated below). For more information on users, see Set-up Users.

Networked Systems: Setting Up an Individual with Global Approval Status. The administrator, by default, has the ability to approve PO's on any workstation. You can also set-up one additional person who has this global approval status. To do so, you must start-up the program on the server (or the machine on which the Common Data Directory resides). Then select SECURITY >> SET-UP USER ACCESS. To have global approval status, you must be using the log-in system. In other words, "Log-in Required" must be selected. The rest of the form is filled-in as described in Users. Don't forget to enter the user's initials. At the bottom of the dialog box, place a checkmark in: "Allow this user to approve PO's". (see illustration, above)

Networked Systems: Setting Up an Individual on a Workstation. Start the program on the workstation used by the person who has approval authority. Then select SECURITY >> SET-UP USER ACCESS. There's a nice step-by-step procedure on how to set-up users: here. Briefly, you follow the same procedure as described in "Single User System" above.

Once you have completed the steps above, the Electronic Approval System is ready to be used. If you haven't already, re-start the program. On the upper right-hand corner of the Main Purchase Order Screen, you'll see a new button: "Approve," shown below. (The button is only visible when the Electronic Approval System is turned on.)

To approve a PO, you must use a workstation where an individual has been set-up as a user with approval authority. Or you may log-in as the individual with global approval status, as described above.

(Note that the Administrator can also log into any user's computer, even if the user is already logged on. To switch to the administrator, select SECURITY >> SET-UP PROGRAM ADMINISTRATOR. You'll find a place to log-in. Once the administrator has logged in, AnyPO will switch gears and will now consider the Administrator as the user of that machine.)

To approve a PO, click on the "Approve" button on the upper right hand corner of the Main Purchase Order Screen. The PO Approval dialog box will appear (below).

Note if you are approving PO's using email notification, described below, then this dialog may not appear. Instead, the special approval dialog box may appear in its place. More information on which dialog box appears is found here.

To approve the PO, click on the "Approve this PO" button. Your initials will be added to the "Approved by" field.

If only person is required to approve a PO, "PO is Approved" will appear in the Current Status field. If it takes more than one person, the PO is not approved until the next person adds their approval.

If you've made a mistake and find that the PO should not be approved, you can remove your approval by clicking on the "Revoke Approval" button.

There is an additional option at the bottom of the dialog box: "Remove All Approvals." This would be used if you require more than one person to approve PO's. Its use is best illustrated by an example. Let's say that PO's require approval by three individuals, and let's say the first two individuals have approved the PO. The third person, however, looks at the PO and discovers that the wrong products have been ordered. That individual can stop the approval process altogether by clicking on "Remove All Approvals." All initials are removed from the "Approved by" field, and PO is back to ground zero as far as approval is concerned. Once the PO has been properly corrected, then the approval process can be re-started.

The Approval dialog box also includes set-up information on the approval system and the initials of current user (which will appear in the "Approved by" field should the user approve the PO.)

Once a PO has been approved the top of the Main Purchase screen includes the "Approved" indicator and the initials of the approvers as shown below:

If you have the Level III program you can use the Electronic Approval system in conjunction with the internal email program. The program will remember the names and email addresses of one or more individuals who have approval authority.

In order to use Email Notification, you'll need to prepare the program for its use. Complete information on setting up the Email Approval System is found: here. The following information describes how it all works . . .

•	Originator. The person who prepares the purchase order and initiates the process is called the "originator." Everything begins with the originator.

•	Request for Approval / Approver. Once the purchase order is prepared, the originator sends a "request for approval" or "Approval Request" to an individual who has approval authority. This person is called the "approver."

To illustrate how it works, let's say that your secretary prepares a PO. Once the PO is prepared, he'll need to send it to you to be approved.

The secretary, then, would be termed the Originator. Since you will be doing the approving, you're called the Approver.

Note that we have also prepared help documentation specifically for the originator. It explains the process from the perspective of the originator. You may with to print it out and give it to the originator. The information is found here.

The secretary starts at the Main Purchase Screen. With the proper PO showing on the screen, he'll select ORDER TOOLS >> SEND EMAIL FOR APPROVAL from menu.

If there is more than one approver, a list will appear from which to select. If there's is only one approver, no list will appear, and the program will go right to the email screen (below).

Note that the following message (in red) may appear on the email screen. There's an explanation of why this message appears and how to fix things: here.

Assuming that there are no error messages, the secretary checks the email screen to make sure the proper PO is showing, and when ready, he sends an "Approval Request" email to you. The email includes a special encoded attachment with a number and a ZYZ extension, i.e. 1002.zyz.

To help the secretary keep track of emails sent to approvers, AnyPO enters the approver's initials and date in the Notes area of the Main Purchase Order Screen. He'll see something like the following appear in Notes after the email is sent: <RDW: 12/12/15>.

When you receive the email and open the ZYZ attachment, the AnyPO program automatically starts on your computer. You, then, log into AnyPO and a special approval dialog box appears. You can tell the special approval dialog box from the normal approval dialog box because of its red color (see below).

Note instead of the ZYZ attachment, there's an alternative way to open with program with the special approval dialog box. More information: here.

The program immediately moves to the PO that needs approval. The special approval dialog is small and is positioned in the upper right corner of the screen which allows you to view the entire PO and determine whether it should be approved or not.

It's at this point that practicalities enter the picture. It's entirely possible that you have been busy or out-of-town, and you may end up accumulating a number of "Approval Requests" in your inbox. If you find several "Approval Requests" in your inbox, it's only necessary to open one of the emails. AnyPO will combine the information from all emails, and create an internal list of PO's that need your approval. The internal list is your "to-do" list.

For example, in the dialog box, shown below, the approver has two (2) PO's that require approval. Once the first PO has been approved, the program will automatically move to the next PO.

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Approved. This will approve the PO. The PO will be removed from the list of PO's to be approved. (Note, however, if you have things set-up so that final approval requires two or more individuals, the program will enter your initials, but final approval won't occur until the other individuals have enter their approval.)

•	No Approval - Keep. You would use this when you need more time to think about the PO. As long as you don't open any new "approval requested" email attachments, AnyPO will remember the PO on a list. You can return to it later by selecting ORDER TOOLS >> TOOLS FOR APPROVERS. More information.

•	No Approval. Use this when you've looked at the PO and you've decided not to approve it. The PO is not approved and it is removed from your list. You may wish to follow things up by calling or sending an email to the originator explaining your reasons.

When you have more than one PO to approve, AnyPO automatically moves from PO to PO. If, after viewing all of the PO's, you decide to go back to re-look at one or more PO's, you can do so by clicking on the "Start Over" button.

As long as you don't open any more "Approval Request" emails, you can completely leave the special approval dialog and still re-visit the original list of PO's. That's done by selecting ORDER TOOLS >> TOOLS FOR APPROVERS. More information.

The maximum number of PO's on any one approver's "to-do" list is 35. Once this limit is reached, when the originator tries to send an email request, it triggers a message. The message informs the originator that the approver has reached the limit of 35, and it advises them to contact the approver before proceeding. The originator can either wait until the approver has caught up with their to-list. Or, if the approver gives them the go-ahead, the originator can send the email request for approval. In that case, however, the program will remove the oldest PO from the approver's "to-do" list. The best procedure in this case is for approver to catch up on their approvals, but if the approver is not concerned with the earliest PO's on the "to-do" list, he or she may instruct the originator to send the email.

You can configure the program to send notification to the originator that the PO has been approved (see originator notification for information on how to set this up.) If you have this feature turned on, and after you complete the approval process, the following dialog box appears:

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Send & Exit. This is the default choice, the choice that you'll select most often. You can either click on the button or press <ENTER> on your keyboard. After clicking the button, a message will be sent to the originator telling them which PO (or PO's) have been approved. (If the PO's needing approval have come from more than one originator, it will be sent to all.) The text of the message includes the PO number(s) and approver's initials.

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Let Me Edit. If you would like to include a note along with the notification message, click this button. The email screen will open. A standard brief message appears which includes the PO numbers of the approved purchase orders. You can alter the message in any way and insert any additional information or instructions for the originator. (If the PO's needing approval have come from more than one originator, email screens for each originator will appear.)

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Do Not Send. If you do not wish to send a notification to the originator, click this button. No notification will be sent. You'll probably only use this option on rare occasions. (If the PO's needing approval have come from more than one originator, if you select this option, none will receive an email.) Note that if you never want to send notifications, then the best way of handling it is to turn if off on the set-up page.

•	Start Again. If, for some reason, you realize that you need to re-look at a PO before sending the originator a message, click this button. It returns you to the red "PO Approval" dialog box above and you can re-start the process.

•	When you click on the special attachment, nothing happens. In this case, you haven't properly set the ZYZ file association in the operating system. To fix this, re-run through the steps found here.

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When you click on the special attachment, AnyPO opens and the special approval dialog box appears, but it tells me there are no PO's waiting to be approved. First of all make sure that you, indeed, have PO's to approve. You may get several approval requests, but you have to open only one attachment to process all of the outstanding PO's However, if that's not the case, then it's likely that you have a mismatch of log-in initials. Check the log-in initials of the user. Then check to make sure that those initials are the same in Basic Program Set-up. If they are different, make the initials in Basic Set-up the same as in user set-up.

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What if I Want to Use Email Approval, but I'm Unable to Configure My System to Use the ZYZ File (Or I Just Simply Don't Want to Use the ZYZ File. There is an alternative method if you don't use the ZYZ file. That involves setting up an additional AnyPO icon on your Windows Desktop. When you click on this second icon, AnyPO is started and it immediately goes into approval mode, the same as if you used the ZYZ attachment. Information on how to set up this alternative method is found here: No ZYZ Attachment.

Helpful Hint. When you use Email for approving PO's, you'll usually be dealing with some settings which are local, settings which are available only on the user's computer. When AnyPO does a normal back-up, it doesn't back-up local settings, so once a user's computer is configured, you'll want to use the "Local Back-up" process. Information is found here: Local Back-up and Restore.

If the PO has not been approved, the printed PO will include the following statement: "NOT VALID: THIS PO HAS NOT BEEN APPROVED!" Once the PO has been approved, the statement is removed.

Some businesses use AnyPO's Electronic Approval System in combination with a signature line on the printed PO. The signature line is turned on in "More Options" accessed from the Print PO dialog box. To reach the Print PO dialog box, select FILE >> PRINT Purchase Order.

When turned on, the signature line appears only when the PO has been approved. When the PO has not been approved, it is replaced with the statement "NOT VALID: THIS PO HAS NOT BEEN APPROVED!"

Additionally, if desired, you can include the approver's initials on the printed purchase. To turn that feature on, click on the "More Options" button on the Print PO dialog box. Look for "Include Initials of Approvers" and place a checkmark there. Initials will appear on the very bottom, right side of the purchase order. It will look like: APPROVED BY: RDW.