Approve and confirm purchase orders

Article
01/06/2023

This article describes the statuses that a purchase order (PO) goes through after it has been created, and the effect of enabling change management on POs.

After a purchase order (PO) has been created, it might have to go through an approval process. After the vendor has agreed to the order, the PO is set to a status of Confirmed.

Approval of purchase orders

POs that don't use change management have a status of Approved as soon as they're created, whereas POs that use change management have a status of Draft when they're first created. A PO that has been created by firming a planned order from master planning is always set to a status of Approved, regardless of the change management settings. A PO creates inventory transactions only when it reaches the Approved status. Therefore, that inventory doesn't appear as available for reservation or marking until the order is accepted.

You enable change management for POs by setting the Activate change management option on the Procurement and sourcing parameters page. When change management is enabled, POs must go through an approval workflow after they've been completed. Supply Chain Management has a workflow process editor where you can define a workflow to represent your approval process. This workflow can include rules for automatic approval, rules that determine who will be assigned to approve particular POs, and rules for escalating a workflow that has been waiting for approval for a long time. You can enable the change management process for all vendors or for specific vendors. You can also set up the process so that it can be overridden for individual POs.

When change management is enabled, POs move through six approval statuses, from Draft to Finalized. After an order has been approved, users who want to modify it must use the Request change action.

Approval status	Description	Request change is enabled
Draft	The PO is a draft and hasn't been submitted for approval in the PO workflow.	No
In review	The PO was submitted for approval in the PO workflow. Approval is pending.	No
Rejected	The PO was rejected during the approval process.	No
Approved	The PO was approved.	Yes
Confirmed	The PO was confirmed. A PO can't be confirmed until it has been approved.	Yes
Finalized	The PO was made final. It's now financially closed and can no longer be changed.	No

Confirming purchase orders

POs that have an approval status of Approved can go through additional steps before they're confirmed. For example, you might have to send a purchase inquiry to the vendor to inquire about prices, discounts, or receipt dates. In this case, you can set the PO to the In external review status by using the Purchase inquiry action.

Vendors that are set up to use the vendor collaboration module can review orders on the portal, and approve or reject them. During this review process, the PO has a status of In external review. The vendor collaboration module can be configured so that a confirmation from the vendor automatically confirms the order in Supply Chain Management. In this scenario, you must schedule the Confirm accepted purchase orders from vendor collaboration batch job, which is responsible for processing and confirming your POs. Alternatively, you can manually confirm a PO after you receive confirmation from the vendor. If a vendor rejects a PO, the rejection is received together with the reason for the rejection and suggestions for changes. In this case, the status of the PO remains In external review.

There's also an option to generate a pro-forma confirmation for an order before the actual confirmation has been processed. This option just creates a report that you can share with the vendor. It doesn't create any journal information.

After the vendor has agreed to the order, the next step is to record the PO as committed. You can complete this step by using either the Confirmation action or the Confirm action. Both these actions set the approval status of the order to Confirmed. Confirmation of an order initiates two additional processes:

A journal is created to store an exact copy of what was confirmed in the system. Sometimes, orders require changes, and additional journals are created after the updated order is confirmed. These journals let you view the history of the various versions of the order that were confirmed.
Accounting distributions are created, and order checks and budget checks occur if this functionality has been enabled. If either check fails, you receive an error message that states that changes must be made to the PO before it can be confirmed again.

A vendor might request some type of assurance that payment will be provided for a purchase. There are various methods for providing this guarantee within accounts payable processes. For example, the Prepayment action reserves funds for the PO, and this prepayment is recorded on the PO.

Changing purchase orders

In some situations, you might have to change a PO after it has reached an approval status of Approved or Confirmed.

If the PO was created by using a change management process, you can make changes by recalling the order or, if the order has already been approved, by using the Request change action. In this case, the approval status is changed back to Draft, and you can then modify the order. After you've finished making changes, you might have to submit the PO for reapproval. You can configure the types of changes that require reapproval by using a Re-approval rule for purchase orders policy rule on the Purchasing policies page.

If part of the ordered quantity for a PO line has been delivered, you can't change the ordered quantity when the purchase order is in Draft. However, you can change the Deliver remainder quantity on the line for the purchase order that is in Draft status.

After an order has been confirmed, you can no longer delete it. However, you can cancel the total quantity or any remaining quantity on an order, provided that the quantity hasn't been received or invoiced. You can then use the Finalize action to prevent further processing.

Canceling purchase orders

A PO can be canceled by using the Cancel action on the header.

If the quantity has been partially registered, received, or invoiced, you can cancel only the remaining quantity that hasn't been registered, received, or invoiced. The order quantity is then reduced accordingly. When the quantity on the line is updated, the line status is also updated. For example, the original quantity on the line is 5, and a quantity of 3 is received. In this case, only two can be canceled. The line is then updated to Received status.

If a delivery remainder is added to the order line, and it exceeds the quantity on the order line, the Cancel action doesn't cancel the excess quantity. Instead, the line remains in Open order status, because it has a remaining quantity. For example, the original quantity on the line is 5, and the delivery remainder is 7. If the order is canceled, five are canceled, and a quantity of 2 remains, as you can see in the inventory transactions.

To cancel the whole quantity on a PO line, you should cancel the delivery remainder quantity on the line. The line will then be updated to Canceled status.

If a PO is under change management, any change, such as cancellation of the order or the delivery remainder, must be submitted to the workflow system and approved before the process can be completed and the inventory transactions can be updated as canceled.