Why are purchases not appearing in the approvals screen?
This article explains some common reasons that a purchase might not be showing in your approvals screen.
In this article:
If you have access to the Approvals screen, but are not seeing an approval you are expecting to be displayed, check these common reasons:
Check the receipt status
If the receipt for the purchase:
- hasn't been uploaded;
- has been uploaded but not checked;
- has been marked as lost and not approved.
Purchases only move through to the approvals screen once a receipt has been provided and checked.
To view whether a receipt of a purchase has been checked, click on the purchase, and hover over the receipt status icon.
Check if the submitter is the primary approver
If the purchase 'submitter' and the 'primary approver' of the expenditure category are the same person, the purchase will automatically be assigned to the backup approver if one has been set.
If no backup approver has been set, the purchase will be auto-approved, bypassing the approvals screen and appearing in the payments screen. If this has happened, we recommend that you set up backup approvers for all of your expenditure categories.
To find out if a purchase was auto-approved, go to the payments screen, click on the purchase, and hover over the approvals status icon.
Check if you have already approved the purchase
You may have approved the purchase either from the approvals screen or by clicking the link in the approvals email that included the purchase.
Only unapproved purchases display on the approvals screen.
To view who approved a purchase, click on the purchase and hover over the approvals status icon (see image above).
Check if someone else approved the purchase
The purchase may have been approved on your behalf by another Finance Team user.
Finance Team users and users with permission to approve on other's behalf, have the ability to approve purchases on behalf of other budget holders.
We recommend they only do this where absolutely necessary, since it takes away the ability from the primary category approver to track and manage their budget.
To view who approved a purchase, click on the purchase, and hover over the approvals status icon (see image above.
Check if you are the category approver for that purchase
If you are not the primary category approver for the category the purchase was allocated against, and you don't have permission to approve purchases on others' behalf, this purchase will not appear on your approvals screen.
Regular budget holders can only view purchases awaiting approval that are assigned to them. The ability to approve on others' behalf is set in the User Roles settings screen.
Check the purchase was allocated to the correct category
If you still can't see the purchase, check with the purchase submitter or a Finance Team user which category the purchase you are expecting was allocated against.
If it is not in the correct category, the submitter or a finance team user can edit the category of the transaction.
To help you better understand the Approvals module as a whole, please visit the module overview page here.