What to do first
If you need something bought or paid for, open Work › My requests and choose Raise a request. Say what it is, how much, which vendor and project it is for, and who is paid. It goes to whoever approves that amount, then to finance to pay, and you can follow it the whole way on the same page.
My requests
Work › My requests shows the requests you raised, and nobody else's.
Four figures sit across the top:
- Raised, all time. What you have asked for across your history, less what was declined, and how many requests that is.
- Waiting on a decision. How many are with an approver, and their total.
- Approved, not yet paid. How many are approved and waiting for finance, and their total.
- Paid to date. What has been paid, and how many.
Narrow the list to All, Waiting on a decision, Approved, Paid or Declined. Each request shows its amount, its state and a sentence saying where it is:
- "With Amaka · 3 days" while it waits on an approver;
- "Cleared by Tunde; with Amaka to sign off" on a two-step chain;
- "Approved by Amaka — waiting for finance to send it";
- "Order placed — waiting for payment", "Paid" or "Declined by Amaka".
Under it: when it was raised, its project and who it pays. Withdraw takes a request out of the queue while it is still waiting on a decision. Open shows it in Payables, and a paid or ordered request has Receipt instead.
You can also raise a request from the Create menu (Purchase request).
Raising a request
The form asks for:
- What is being bought, specific enough to approve without asking.
- Amount. The form says who will be asked to approve that amount.
- Vendor, if there is one.
- Project. Once paid, the request becomes a spend line against the project's budget.
- Also for, optionally: a client's engagement, a campaign or a resource, whose margin or spend counts this.
- Pay to, the Account number and the Bank.
- Note: what the approver needs to know that the title cannot carry.
Payables
Finance › Payables is the desk where requests are decided and paid. Across the top: how many requests are Waiting on a decision (and how many are yours to decide), the Longest wait, Waiting to send for whoever sends money, what is Committed (approved or ordered, not yet paid), and what has been Paid in the current cycle.
The wait is the figure that matters. A wait is counted from when the request was raised, through every step of the approval, and is not restarted when the first approver clears it.
Requests you can decide on also appear as approvals in your My work.
Payables lists every request to anyone who can approve one, send money or keep the books, and to level 4. Anyone else sees the requests they raised and the ones waiting on them. A payee's account number and bank are shown to the requester, whoever the request is waiting on or was first approved by, whoever can send it, finance admins and level 4.
In a workspace that keeps Payables to Finance, everybody can still raise a request and follow it in My requests: asking to buy something is not a Finance job.
Who may approve
When nobody has been named, the amount decides, so a request does not stall because one person is on leave:
- Up to 500,000: a manager, level 2 and above.
- Up to 5,000,000: managers, level 3 and above.
- Above that: an executive, level 4.
A workspace can instead name who approves, and up to how much, under Organisation › Rules & automation › Approvals & limits. A named approver decides every request their limit covers, whatever their seat, and a request above their limit does not reach them. A request above every named limit goes back to the amount rule, so none is left with nobody able to approve it.
One approver or two
A workspace chooses between two shapes, under the same Approvals & limits section:
- One approval. Whoever holds the seat the amount demands approves it, and it is done. This is the default.
- Manager, then final approval. The request goes first to the requester's own manager, whose button reads Approve & send on, and then to whoever signs last. Nothing is released until both have approved. Named approvers, when there are any, sign the final step.
Sending the money
Approving a request does not move money; somebody in finance does. Approvals & limits names who sends money, and up to how much, and the heads of finance.
- A sender is told when a request they can send is approved, and sees it in Waiting to send. A request above their limit does not reach them.
- A head of finance can send any amount, and sees everything that has been sent.
- When nobody is named, the people in a finance seat send, or the workspace owner where nobody holds one. Managers and executives do not send unless they are named.
On a request waiting to be sent, Mark sent records the day the money left and the bank's reference, writes it to the ledger and moves the request to paid. Couldn't send asks why (the account name did not resolve, the balance was short), keeps the request waiting, shows the reason on its row, and tells the person who raised it.
Waiting to send, Sent and Payment history
Senders and heads of finance see Requests, Waiting to send and Sent. Nobody else does, not even an administrator, unless they are named.
- Waiting to send is the sender's desk: approved requests within their limit, oldest approval first, with the payee's account written out in full.
- Sent is the ledger. A sender sees what they sent; a head of finance sees every payment the company made, from requests and direct payments together, with totals. A payment walked back stays on the ledger, marked reversed, with the reason.
- Payment history is every payment the company made, month by month, for heads of finance and anybody at an executive seat. It is read-only. Narrow it to the cycle running now (where it opens), this month, this year or all time, to requests or direct payments, or by words in the payee, purpose, reference, project or sender. Download CSV gives the same list with the payee's account, bank and reference, and is recorded in the audit log.
A payment with no request
Money sometimes leaves before anybody raised a request, such as an emergency repair or a utility bill. Record a payment, offered to whoever may send, puts it straight into the ledger as a direct payment. It is held to the same send limit a request of that size would be, and it has to say why there was no request. Paid against a project, it counts as that project's spend.
Orders from the store room
In a real estate workspace, materials are asked for in the store room, not here. A site asks on a requisition, the project's lead approves it, and a manager orders it, choosing the supplier and the rates. That order arrives in Payables as an ordinary request, through the same approvals.
Such a request shows its requisition's reference and what has been delivered against it: awaiting delivery, some lines delivered, or delivered to store. Read it before paying a balance. The reference opens the requisition (see Real estate operations).
Vendors
Payables lists every vendor the company uses, with the requests raised against them and how many were declined. Add a vendor adds one; spend and reliability are counted from the requests, so there is nothing else to keep up to date.
A vendor with three declined requests is suspended automatically. Managers (level 3) can also Suspend a vendor, or Lift a suspension. The full supplier record, with contacts, documents and payee details, is kept in Organisation › Suppliers (see Organisation).
How it connects
- A request can name a project, and paid requests become that project's spend.
- Approvals waiting on you appear in My work.
- Committed and paid figures feed Finance and Cost & margin.
- Payments sent today appear in Your business day.
Common questions
Where did Procurement go? It is Finance › Payables. Everyday requests are raised and followed in Work › My requests.
I approved something and nothing happened. Check whether your workspace uses two approvals. Your approval may be the first of two.
Why can I not approve this request? The amount, or the people named under Approvals & limits, decide who approves. The message on the request names the approval it needs.
An approved request is not in my Waiting to send. It is above your send limit, or you are not named as a sender. A head of finance can send it, and was told if nobody's limit covered it.
I run the company. Where do I see what we paid? Payment history. You do not need to be a sender to read it.
We paid something outside Rople. How do we record it? Record a payment, with the reason there was no request.