Purchase approval workflow software that routes by amount, site and role.

Purchase approval workflow software applies a set of rules to every request and turns the result into a chain of named approvers. In Bollard the rules use three inputs: the amount, the site and the requester's role. A small consumables order at one site might need one sign-off, while a large equipment purchase might need three.

Multi-level routing is keyed to amount limits. Each level has a limit, and a request climbs as far as its value requires. Because the chain is worked out from rules, nobody has to remember who covers which site or which threshold, and nobody can pick a friendlier approver.

A procurement approval matrix is the table that says who may approve which purchases, usually by amount band, cost centre, site or category. The workflow is how that policy gets applied to each request as it arrives.

Most organisations already have a matrix, often in a finance policy that few requesters have read. Setting up approvals in Bollard means turning that document into routing rules. Safock does this in the discovery days at the start of setup, using your role names and your thresholds, and you see it working on a pilot site before it goes wider.

Approval chains follow the hierarchy an organisation already has. These are the chains in the configurations Safock has built or offers:

A rejection without a reason leaves the requester guessing. Bollard requires a remark to reject, and the remark is written to the audit log with the decision.

The remark tells the requester what was wrong with the request. Later, it lets an auditor see why a purchase was refused as clearly as why another was approved, which matters when someone asks whether the policy is applied the same way at every site.

Approvals come straight after the request, the second of seven steps from request to payment.

The step before is the requisition. The requester has already added a budget code and a reason and seen the estimated total and the route, so the approver is judging a complete request with nothing to chase.

The step after is sourcing and the purchase order. An approved request goes to purchasing, which sends RFQs, compares quotations and raises the PO from the winner. The approved items and quantities carry forward, and the PO then fixes the price that the delivery and invoice are checked against.

Email approval depends on memory, and ERP approval routing usually arrives after a long configuration project. Bollard sets up routing in discovery and records every decision in an append-only log.

With spreadsheets and email, an approval is a reply in someone's inbox. It is hard to find later and easy to skip when the right person is away. An ERP can route by amount and role, but in the vendor's vocabulary and after months of implementation. Bollard puts the first site live in about two weeks, in your own terms, and improvements reach every site the same day.