Approve bills and purchase orders

Approvals shows everything waiting on your decision across bills and purchase orders, and each row opens the document — the decision is made looking at it, not from the list. What needs approving is set by policies: amount bands per document type, naming either specific people or anyone holding a permission, with either all of them or any one required. Bands cannot overlap, so exactly one policy applies to any amount, and if none covers it, submitting approves the document immediately. Editing policies needs approval_policies.manage, deliberately separate from being able to approve.

Approvals is the control between committing money and spending it. It covers both bills and purchase orders.

What is waiting on you {#inbox}

Purchases → Approvals. The list shows only documents you are personally an approver for, so an empty inbox means nothing is waiting on you — not that nothing is waiting.

Each row opens the document. Decisions are made looking at the bill or order, not from a summary line.

How approval rules are set {#policies}

A policy defines an amount band for a document type, and who must approve within it — either named people, or anyone holding a given permission, with either all of them or any one required.

Bands cannot overlap, so exactly one policy applies to any amount. This is enforced when the policy is saved rather than resolved at approval time, so two rules can never disagree about the same document.

Nothing appeared for approval {#nothing}

The usual cause is that the amount falls outside every band, so the document was approved the moment it was submitted. That is the configured behaviour: no policy means no approval required.

Otherwise, check you are named on the policy or hold the permission it names.

Editing policies requires approval_policies.manage, deliberately separate from being able to approve — being trusted to authorise a payment is not the same as being trusted to decide who authorises payments.