Set up purchase order and bill approval in Enterprise 22.0

Teach QuickBooks to follow the same purchase order and bill approval process used in your organization.

Learn how to set up rules for QuickBooks to check which purchase orders/bills need approval for entry and payment. Users are then prompted to send for approval.

Note: Available only in QuickBooks Enterprise Diamond or Platinum. 

Step 1: Setup and define the approval process

1. Go to Company and select Set Up Approval Processes.
2. Select Get Started, then Set up in the purchase order/bill template card.
3. Sign in to your Intuit account as an admin if you haven't already. 
   You’re taken to the approval process creation screen.
4. Enter the name and description for the process.
5. Enter the conditions for purchase orders/bills when you want to trigger the approval process. You can set up conditions on Amount, Vendor name and Vendor type. 
6. Select the approver name and enter the email address of the approver.
7. You can customize the email subject and message.
   Note: Add the email address to send the notifications to someone in addition to the approver. 
8. Select Save & Activate and the approval process will activate for all the newly created purchase orders/bills.

You can also save the created process and activate later from the Approval processes tab.

Edit, deactivate, or delete from the Approval processes

• Recent edits apply only to newly created purchase orders/bills. Existing purchase orders/bills still follow the previous process. 
• Delete the created process. If you have transactions which need approval, you’re asked to delete them first. After, you can delete the process. 
• If you turn off the process, newly created purchase orders/bills won’t require approval. Current transactions still need approval.

Note: Only the admin and primary admin in the Intuit account can create an approval process.

Step 2: Send purchase orders/bills for approval

Once the approval process activates, QuickBooks identifies which purchase orders/bills require approval. If you aren't signed into an Intuit account, we'll prompt you to sign in. 

• Select Yes, send for approval to send the purchase order/bill for approval.
• Or, select No, save as draft to save the purchase order/bill as a draft. 
  It won't affect the register while in draft state. 

Note:

• Transactions you create as an admin won't need approval.
• Changes to the memo or address won't trigger the approval process again.
• Bill created from an item receipt won't be sent for approval.

Step 3: Approve the purchase order/bill

1. The approver selects Track and Approve Transactions from the Company menu. We'll ask you to sign in to your account if you aren't already.
2. You’ll see all the transactions assigned to you with the following statuses:
   • Pending shows the purchase orders/bills waiting for your approval.
   • Rejected shows purchase orders/bills you denied.
   • Approved shows all approved purchase orders/bills.
   • All shows every purchase order/bill, regardless of status. 
3. Select each pending purchase order/bill, then select Approve or Reject to deny.

Note: The bill / purchase order approval list only shows the first 101 transactions. If the approval process receives more than that, the Admin will be unable to view all pending transactions. Approve or reject transactions in the approval list to let more transactions flow into the list.