Pending Approval and Purchase Order Approvals

Use Pending Approval when your company requires a manager to sign off on larger purchase orders. The screen is the approver’s inbox: every purchase order that was held for review, how much money is waiting, and how long the oldest request has been waiting. The decision itself (approve, reject or withdraw) happens on the purchase order’s own page. Pending approval means the PO is held for internal review. It has not been committed to the vendor, inventory has not been received from it, and normal edit, send, receive and cancel actions are paused until the PO is approved, rejected or withdrawn for revision.

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Where To Find It

Open Purchasing > Pending Approval. The page heading reads Pending PO Approvals. You can also open it from the command palette, which has a navigation entry for Pending Approval. From the screen, Purchasing > Purchase Orders and Purchasing > Reorder Report sit beside it in the same group. The Pending Approval entry in the Purchasing group shows a count badge of the POs waiting for approval. The badge uses the same list as the screen, so a cancelled, archived or fulfilled PO never counts. The badge and the screen refresh on their own when a PO is held, approved or rejected.

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Prerequisites

• To open the screen you need the View Purchasing permission (purchasing.view).
• To approve, reject or re-approve you need the Approve Purchase Orders permission (the purchasing.approve permission in the role editor). By default that is Owner, Admin, Manager and Accountant.
• To approve a PO above the high-value limit you also need Approve Purchase Orders (Tier 2). By default that is Owner, Admin and Accountant, not Manager.
• To withdraw a request you must be the person who created the PO and have the Create Purchase Orders permission.
• Your company chooses the dollar limits. Without a limit no PO is ever held.

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Set The Approval Limits

Go to Settings > System > Approval Workflows and find the Purchase Order Approval card. If you save a high limit that is not greater than the first, Arcus refuses with “High-value (tier 2) PO threshold must be greater than the PO approval threshold”. A negative or non-numeric entry is refused with “PO approval threshold must be a non-negative number or left blank to disable”.

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How A PO Lands Here

1. Someone creates a draft PO and sends it to the vendor, or moves it from draft to open.
2. If the total is above your limit and the PO is not already approved, Arcus does not send it. It stamps the PO as awaiting approval and says: “PO total $X exceeds approval threshold$Y. The purchase order was NOT sent and is awaiting manager approval.”
3. The PO stays in draft, appears on Pending Approval, and the Purchasing badge goes up by one.

Arcus does not email approvers when it holds a PO that is being sent or opened; a PO sent back to pending because an edit raised its total does email them. The badge and this screen are how an approver finds the work. A PO that is already approved, or that is only being reopened for a correction after it was received, is not held again.

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Read The Inbox

The three cards at the top describe every PO waiting, not only the page you are looking at. The table has one row per PO, newest request first. You can:

• Click a column heading to sort by PO #, Vendor, Requested By, Amount or Requested. Click again to reverse. The # and Notes columns do not sort.
• Open the Columns menu to hide or reorder columns and to reset them. PO # cannot be hidden.
• Open Saved Views to save the current sort and page size and apply it again later.
• Change the number of rows per page. The default is 25 and the most Arcus shows on a page is 100.
• Click a row, the PO number or Review to open the purchase order.

The page, sort and page size are kept in the address of the page, so a link you share opens the same view. When nothing is waiting the table says “No POs are awaiting approval right now.” and explains that “Purchase orders that require sign-off will appear here for an approver to review.”

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Review The Approval Banner

The PO page shows an amber Manager Approval Required banner while approval is pending. It states the total and says that the PO exceeds your company’s approval threshold, that a manager must approve it before it can be sent, that the PO is held in draft and locked for editing, and that no commitment to the vendor has been made. The buttons depend on who you are.

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Approve A PO

1. Open the PO from Pending Approval.
2. Review the vendor, line items, quantities, costs, notes and documents.
3. Click Approve PO.
4. Arcus shows “PO number approved. It can now be sent to the vendor.” and moves the PO from draft to open.
5. Send the PO to the vendor and receive it when the goods arrive.

Approval does not email the vendor, receive inventory or post to the ledger. It only releases the PO back into the purchasing workflow.

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Reject A PO

1. Open the PO from Pending Approval.
2. Click Reject.
3. Enter the reason. The Confirm Rejection button stays off until you type one, and the server refuses a blank reason with “reason required”.
4. Click Confirm Rejection, or Cancel to back out.
5. Arcus shows “PO number rejected. The creator can revise and resubmit.” and the PO leaves the inbox.

The creator then sees a red Approval Rejected banner: “This PO was rejected by an approver. Revise the line items or terms and resubmit for approval.” The Revise + Resubmit button returns the PO to draft so it can be edited. A rejected PO cannot be received.

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Withdraw For Revision

If you created the PO and need to change it while approval is pending, click Withdraw for Revision. Arcus shows “PO number returned to draft. You can now edit and resubmit.”, clears the approval request and unlocks editing. Send or open the PO again when the edits are done. If the new total is still above the limit it is held again. Only the creator can withdraw. Anyone else is refused.

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When An Approved PO Grows

When the PO is Open and nothing has been received on it yet, an edited or added line that lifts its total above the approved amount sends it back to Pending Approval: approval is requested again, approvers are emailed, and editing, sending and receiving lock until it is approved, rejected or withdrawn. Once something has been received, the increase does not stop the PO: receiving, billing and closing keep working. Instead the PO page shows an amber Approval is out of date banner: “This PO was approved at $A. It now totals$B (+$C). The approval on file no longer covers the current amount.”

• Re-approve records a fresh approval at the new total. It is hidden for the PO’s creator and for anyone without the approval permission. When the new total is above the high-value limit and you lack tier-2 permission the button reads Re-approve (Controller Required) and is turned off. A success shows “PO number re-approved at $B.”
• Review changes scrolls to the PO’s activity so you can see what changed.
• Lowering the lines back to the approved amount also clears the banner.

Re-approving does not send the PO back to pending and does not move its status.

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What Is Blocked While A PO Is Pending

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What Arcus Records

• Who requested approval and when, shown in the Requested column.
• The approver’s name and time on approval or rejection, and the rejection reason, kept as the approval note.
• A timeline entry and an activity entry for each request, approval, rejection, withdrawal and re-approval. A re-approval records the old and new approved amounts.
• Nothing posts to the general ledger and no stock moves from any of these steps.

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Common Blocks

• Approve PO is missing: you may not have the approval permission, or you may be the creator.
• Awaiting Another Approver appears: you created the PO and cannot approve it yourself.
• Approve PO (Controller Required) is off: the total is above your high-value limit and you lack Approve Purchase Orders (Tier 2).
• Confirm Rejection is off: enter a rejection reason first.
• Withdraw for Revision is missing: only the PO creator can withdraw a pending request.
• “PO is not pending approval”: another user already approved, rejected or withdrew it. Refresh the PO.
• Email to Vendor is off: approve, reject or withdraw the PO first.
• Add Item or Receive Items is blocked: the PO is locked while approval is pending.
• The inbox is empty: no purchase order is currently waiting, or none is above your limit.
• “Failed to load pending approvals.”: the list could not load. The message continues with the reason or “Please try again.” Reload the page.
• A PO you expected is missing: a cancelled, archived or fulfilled PO never appears, even when its approval was left pending.

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