Running a school
Approving an order that went over a cap
What the person who was stopped sees, what you see, and what happens to the basket in between.
On this page
When somebody tries to place an order beyond their spending cap, or without spending permission at all, it becomes a request rather than a refusal. This is what happens next.
What the person who was stopped sees
A page saying the order has gone for approval, naming the figure and saying who can release it. Their basket is not emptied and nothing has to be typed again. They get an alert when it is decided, either way.
What you see
A count beside My school in the menu, an alert at whatever frequency you have set, and the request itself on your approvals page: who asked, what for, every line with net, VAT and gross, and their purchase order number if they gave one.
Approving
Approving places the order as it was built, on the current terms, in the approver's name. From that point it is an ordinary order and behaves like one: confirmation, reference, activity log, invoice. See what happens after you order.
Declining
Declining tells the person, with whatever you say about why. Nothing is ordered and nothing is charged. Their basket keeps its contents, so a decline that means "not this term" is a pause rather than an erasure.
Write a sentence. "Not this year, budget is committed" saves a conversation; a bare decline produces one.
Deciding on price
Everything you need is on the page. If something looks wrong, the item's own catalogue page shows how the price was worked out, and nine times out of ten a surprise is the number on roll rather than the price. See what a price means.
Nobody approves their own
A School Admin buying something over their own cap does not approve it themselves. Another School Admin does. If your school has only one, the answer is to have two: it takes a minute on the people page and it removes a single point of failure from every purchase your school makes.
Prices move while it waits
A request approved after a price has changed is placed at the price on the approval screen, and that screen is the one to read rather than the memory of the catalogue. If a term has changed in the meantime the current version is what applies, and it is shown.
Keeping the queue short
An approvals queue that is always full is a cap set too low, and every approval that is clicked without being read is worse than no cap at all. If you are approving the same person's ordinary weekly order, raise their cap.
Not what you were after?
Ask City Council in the bubble at the corner of any page, or open your help conversation in full. It is one conversation that never closes, so there is nothing to raise and no subject line to invent.