This is a feature which can be enabled in company settings. When switched on for the first time you will asked whether or not to mark pre-existing purchase orders as approved, or to leave them in an unapproved state. This will not affect purchase orders already matched to a purchase invoice.
With this feature enabled all new purchase orders are created in an unapproved state. While a purchase order is unapproved it is not possible to print it or create a PDF of it. However, note that an unapproved purchase order is NOT an estimate - it has a real PO number and will be counted as an actual cost in reports and other interfaces. It is not possible to match an unapproved purchase order to a purchase invoice - only approved POs will be listed for allocation.
In order to use the approval process you must have at least one user account marked as a purchase order approver. To make a user an approver open the user record in file maintenance and go to the Access tab. In the section for purchase order restrictions, tick the box Purchase order approver:
In addition you can set a limit on the value of purchases this user can approve. Leaving it as zero means unlimited. Note that the maximum PO cost figure is not an approval limit, that limit applies to the creation of purchase orders, not approval.
The limit you set is important as Synergist operates a tier-based system of alerting approvers about purchase orders awaiting approval. If you wish to enable alerts to purchase approvers you should create a new item in your Synergist scheduler (gear icon > utilities > scheduler). The alert is called "PO ready for approval" and can be scheduled to run hourly / daily, or more frequently by selecting "X - custom". Whenever the scheduled event runs all unapproved purchase orders created since the last run date / time will generate email alerts to suitable approvers.
Alerts will be sent to users marked as approvers whose approval limit is equal to or exceeds the new purchase order value. However, the tier system means that alert is only sent to the lowest tier of approvers capable of approving a purchase order will get the alert - higher tiers will not. So if you have tiers set at £100.00, £1000.00 and £10000.00 a purchase order created for £500.00 will send an alert to the £1000.00 tier, but not the £100.00 tier (PO is too high value) or the £10000.00 tier (a lower tier can approve it). As such it is important that you decide on your tier values and use only those - in the example above a single user with an approval limit of £500.00 would become the only recipient of the alert. In addition, if you create a purchase order which you are able to approve, no alerts are sent, you should simply approve it there and then.
In order to mark a purchase order as approved an authorised user simply ticks the box on the details tab of the purchase order in the status section. The date and time and the identity of the user who approved the purchase order is recorded on the details tab of the purchase order next to the checkbox used to approve the PO:
An additional option can be selected in company settings > alerts to have a return notification to the PO creator at the point at which a purchase order is approved.
Once a purchase order is approved it can be printed / PDF'd and sent to the supplier, and can be matched against a supplier invoice normally.
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