Approval status reference
This page lists every status you can see while a purchase order, vendor deposit or bill payment goes through approval. It covers the status chips, the Approval card's headlines and timeline, and the chips each document shows in its own header and list. The examples use Priya Shah (purchasing manager and administrator, approves up to $10,000), Dana Reyes (the buyer who raises requests) and Sam Turner (the owner and an administrator, the only approver above $10,000).
Request status chips
A request is one trip through the approval policy. These chips appear on the Approval card, in the Status column of Orders → Approvals, in the review drawer and in the card's History list.
| Chip | What it means | What happens to the document |
|---|---|---|
| Needs approval | There's no request yet, and the amount falls in a tier that requires approval. | Nothing yet. A purchase order stays a draft, a deposit stays a draft, and a bill stays unpaid until someone requests approval or approves it directly. |
| Not required | There's no request, and the amount falls in an Auto-approve tier. | The document goes through without an approver. |
| Awaiting approval | The request is waiting on the people listed on its current step. | The document is blocked until the request finishes. A document has only one open request at a time. |
| Re-approval needed | An already-approved document changed enough that the policy asks again. The chip has a refresh icon. | The document keeps its earlier approval for the things that are still allowed, such as receiving, but whatever the re-approval protects stays blocked. See How re-approval works. |
| Approved | Every step is approved. | A draft purchase order opens (and is sent to the supplier if the source asked for that). An open purchase order's re-approval clears. A deposit becomes Approved and ready to pay. A bill gets an Approved to pay amount. |
| Overridden | An administrator approved it with Override approve instead of the listed approvers. Every step still open was marked approved. | Same as Approved. The document is flagged so the override stays visible. |
| Rejected | An approver rejected the request with a reason. The request ends there. | A draft purchase order stays a draft and shows Approval Rejected. An open purchase order with rejected changes stays blocked until you revert the changes or request approval again. A deposit goes back to Draft. A bill shows Payment request rejected. |
| Withdrawn | The request closed with no decision. | The document goes back to where it was before the request. The exception is an open purchase order whose re-approval was withdrawn: its changes stay unapproved, so re-sending and new deposits stay blocked until you revert them or request approval again. See the list of causes below. |
| Superseded | A newer request replaced this one, after a material change or an administrator's re-route. | Approvals given on the old request don't carry over. The newer request is the one to act on. |
A request is Withdrawn when:
- the requester or an administrator clicks Withdraw before anyone approves a step
- someone reverts the purchase order to draft
- someone deletes the purchase order, deposit or bill
- an administrator turns the policy off while the request is waiting
Small chips next to the status
| Chip | Where you see it | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Self-approved | Queue Status column, Approval card timeline | The person who raised the request approved it. This happens only when the policy's Self-approval rule allows it. See Set approval rules. |
| System | Queue Status column | Nobody raised the request by hand: SKU.io created the purchase order on its own, from auto-reorder or backorder purchasing, a forecast schedule, or an automatic dropship purchase order. The Requested by column also reads System. Imports and the Create Purchase Order and Generate orders dialogs are requested in the name of the person who used them. |
| Escalated | Queue Status column (red) | Nobody decided in time and the reminders ran out, or nobody is left who can approve the current step. Administrators were alerted. |
| Re-approval | Queue Document column | The request is a re-approval of a document that was approved before. |
| On behalf of name | Approval card timeline | A delegate approved in place of the named approver. See Hand off approvals while you're away. |
| Also satisfied Step n | Approval card timeline | One approval counted for a later step too, because the same person was listed on both. |
| Overridden | Approval card timeline | The decision on this step was an administrator's override. |
The Approval card
The Approval card appears on a purchase order, a vendor deposit and a bill's payment section whenever a policy covers that kind of document, or the document has approval history. The same card, in a compact form, appears in the review drawer on Orders → Approvals. When there's no policy and no history, the card is hidden.
The title bar shows Approval, the status chip, and then the tier and amount, for example Over $10,000 · $18,650.00. When the document is in another currency, the amount reads in your base currency first, with the document's currency in brackets.
Headlines
The headline sits at the top of the card and sums up where the request is.
| Headline | When you see it |
|---|---|
| Waiting on you · 2h | You can approve the current step and you're the only person who can. |
| Waiting on you (or Sam Turner) · 2h | You and others can approve the current step. The time is how long the step has waited. |
| Waiting on Sam Turner for 3 hours | Someone else has to approve. If you can't, a second line explains why, starting You can't approve this one —. For example: You can't approve this one — over your approval limit — the "Over $10,000" tier needs Sam Turner. |
| Needs approval again — waiting on name | A re-approval is waiting. The second line gives the reason, such as Re-approval: amount increased. |
| No one can approve this | Nobody is eligible for the current step. The second line reads No eligible approver — ask an admin to re-route or override. See Override or re-route a stuck request. |
| Approved by name | The request is approved. Adds , on behalf of name when a delegate approved. |
| Approved by override — name (admin) | An administrator overrode the request. The second line quotes the reason: Reason: "…". |
| Rejected by name | The request was rejected. The second line quotes the reason. |
| Request withdrawn by name | The request was withdrawn. A withdrawn re-approval reads Re-approval withdrawn by name. |
| Superseded by a newer request | A newer request replaced this one. |
When a reminder went out, the headline adds Reminder sent 2 hours ago. (or Last reminder sent… after more than one).
Before anyone requests approval
A document with no request shows a preview of where approval would go:
| Preview line | What it means |
|---|---|
| No approval needed — tier band. | The amount falls in an Auto-approve tier. |
| You can approve this directly — tier tier. | You're eligible for every step, so Approve finishes it in one click. |
| Approving this will go to: Priya Shah or Sam Turner (Up to $10,000) | The request will go to these people. , then 1 more step is added when the tier has more steps. |
| No eligible approver (…) — an admin will be alerted to re-route or override. | Nobody can approve this amount at the moment. |
An amber warning line can follow the preview, for example Nobody can approve step 2 (Owner approval) — it would escalate to administrators.
Timeline lines
| Line | What it means |
|---|---|
| Requested by name · date | Who raised the request, or System. The request note follows in quotes. |
| Re-approval raised automatically: amount increased | The request was raised by an edit. The reason is one of: amount increased, supplier changed, currency changed, lines added, payee details changed. |
| Step 1 · Approval — any 1 of: Priya Shah, Sam Turner | The step, its name and who can approve it. all of: means every listed person must approve. A delegate shows as name (delegate for name**)**. |
| name approved / rejected · date | A decision, with the approver's note in quotes. |
| Override approved by name (admin) | An override. It's followed by Reason: "…" and The eligible approvers and the requester were notified. |
| Satisfied by name**'s Step 1 approval** | An earlier approval also covered this step. |
| Waiting on names · time | Who the current step is waiting on. no eligible approver appears in red when nobody can approve it. |
| Reminder sent · time **ago (**n sent) | The latest reminder. |
| No decision · n reminders sent · escalated to admins date | The request was escalated. This also happens with reminders turned off when everyone who could approve the step has left or lost access. |
| Starts after Step n | A later step that hasn't started yet. |
| Approved, Override approved, Rejected, Withdrawn or Superseded · date | How the request ended. |
History
History (n) is a collapsed list under the timeline with every earlier request on the same document. Each line has its status chip and a sentence, for example:
- Approved by Priya Shah Oct 14 at $2,150.10
- Rejected by Sam Turner Oct 14 — "Hold until the spring catalogue is confirmed."
- Withdrawn Oct 14 (requested by Dana Reyes at $4,280.00)
- Priya Shah approved Oct 14 at $8,000.00 — superseded by a material change
Card buttons and menu
| Control | Who sees it | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Approve | Approvers of the current step. Others see it disabled, with the reason in a tooltip. | Opens the approve dialog. |
| Reject | Approvers of the current step. | Opens the reject dialog. A reason is required. |
| Send reminder | The requester, and administrators and anyone with Approval Policies → Override & re-route. | Reminds the current approvers. If one went out recently, the tooltip reads A reminder went out recently — you can send another in a few hours. Others see Only the requester (name) or an admin can send reminders. |
| Withdraw | The requester, and administrators and anyone with Approval Policies → Override & re-route, until anyone has approved a step. | Closes the request with no decision. |
| Approval actions menu (⋯) → Override approve | Administrators and anyone with Approval Policies → Override & re-route, when they can't approve the step in the normal way. | Approves without being an approver. A reason is required. |
| Approval actions menu (⋯) → Re-route to current policy | Administrators and anyone with Approval Policies → Override & re-route. | Starts the request over under today's policy and clears every approval collected so far. |
| Approval actions menu (⋯) → Copy link | Everyone. | Copies the page address. The toast reads Link copied. |
If the card can't load, it shows Couldn't load the approval. with Retry.
Purchase order chips
These chips appear in the purchase order header, next to the order status, and in the Status column of the purchase order list.
| Chip | When you see it |
|---|---|
| Awaiting Approval | A draft purchase order has a waiting request. |
| Approval Rejected | A draft purchase order's request was rejected. |
| Re-approval needed | An open purchase order changed after approval and is waiting to be approved again. |
An open purchase order that needs re-approval also shows a banner: Re-approval needed. followed by what changed, for example The total rose from $8,000.00 to $12,000.00 (+50.0%) after Priya Shah approved it., and Re-sending to the supplier and new deposits are blocked until it's re-approved. Receiving is still allowed.
When the re-approval ends without approval, the banner says why the changes are still blocked:
- in red, after a rejection: The changes since approval were rejected by Sam Turner — revert them or request approval again.
- in amber, after a withdrawal: Re-approval withdrawn by Dana Reyes — revert the changes or request approval again.
On the lifecycle strip at the top of the purchase order, the Approved stage reads:
- Awaiting approval while a draft has a waiting request
- Next: use Approve on a draft with no request that you can approve yourself
- Next: request approval on a draft with no request that someone else must approve
- Needs approval on a draft you can neither approve nor request approval for
- Approved date once approved, with a Re-approval badge while a re-approval is waiting. Its tooltip reads Changes since approval need re-approval. Re-sending to the supplier and new deposits are blocked until it is re-approved; receiving is still allowed.
For every purchase order status, see the Purchase order status reference.
Vendor deposit statuses
A deposit's own status chip changes as its payment request moves through approval.
| Deposit status | Approval state |
|---|---|
| Draft | No request, or the request was rejected or withdrawn. |
| Payment Requested | The payment request is awaiting approval. The Status filter on the vendor deposits list calls this Pending Approval. |
| Approved | Every step is approved. The deposit is ready to pay. |
| Partially Paid, Paid and later statuses | Payment was recorded after approval. |
See Manage vendor deposits for the rest of the deposit lifecycle.
Bill payment statuses
A bill's payment section has a Payment Authorization panel with its own chip. While the bill payment policy is on, the Approval card appears inside this panel.
| Chip | What it means |
|---|---|
| Not Requested | Nobody has asked to pay this bill yet. |
| Pending Approval | The payment request is awaiting approval. |
| Approved | The payment request is approved. |
| Rejected | The payment request was rejected. A red box reads Payment request rejected, with the reason. |
The panel also shows:
- Approved to pay — how much of the outstanding balance an approval already covers. You can pay up to this amount, in one payment or several.
- amount still needs approval — the part of the balance the approval doesn't cover, for example after the bill went up.
On the bill's payments list, a payment recorded in your accounting system without an approved payment request shows the Paid outside approval chip. Its tooltip reads Recorded in your accounting system without an approved payment request. It was kept so the bill's balance stays right — review it with whoever approves bill payments.
See Track and pay purchase invoices for paying bills.