Approve or reject a request

Everything waiting on your approval, whether it's a purchase order, a vendor deposit or a bill payment, collects under Orders → Approvals. You review each request in a drawer beside the list, approve it with an optional note or reject it with a reason, and move straight on to the next one. In the examples, Priya Shah approves up to $10,000 and works through requests that Dana Reyes raised.

Before you begin

• You approve a request when the policy lists you, directly or through a role, on its current step. You can also approve when you're on the final step of a higher tier (except on a step that needs All of its listed approvers), or when you're covering for an approver as their delegate. No role permission lets you approve. See How approvals work.
• Everyone can open Orders → Approvals. All pending is there only for administrators and roles with Approval Policies → View rules. Without it, History lists only the requests you raised or decided.
• Turn on email for your approval alerts so you don't have to keep checking SKU.io. The in-app bell is easy to miss. See Get approval requests by email.

Find what's waiting on you

1. Go to Orders → Approvals.

   The badge next to Approvals in the menu counts the requests waiting on you, and refreshes about every minute.

2. Make sure Waiting on me is selected. Its count matches the badge.

The page has three views:

View	What it lists
Waiting on me	Requests whose current step you can approve now.
All pending	Every request that's still waiting, including ones waiting on someone else.
History	Finished requests: approved, rejected, withdrawn and superseded.

Each row shows the Document (with a PO, Deposit or Bill payment chip), Supplier, Amount, Tier, Step (such as 1 of 2), Waiting on, Requested by and how long ago it was Requested. The age turns red after 3 days. If nobody can approve a request, Waiting on reads No eligible approver in red, and administrators and anyone with Approval Policies → Override & re-route need to step in. See Override or re-route a stuck request. For every column, filter and chip, see the Approvals queue reference.

When nothing is waiting, the page reads You're all caught up with a View history button.

Review and approve in the drawer

1. Click a row, anywhere except the document number.

   A drawer opens on the right. Clicking the document number opens the document itself instead. On a phone, tapping a row always opens the document.

2. Review the request. The drawer shows:

   • The document number, with Open in a new tab next to it, and your place in the list, such as 1 of 3.
   • The supplier, who requested it and how long ago, and the amount. A foreign-currency amount shows the base-currency amount next to it.
   • Chips for the tier, the step (such as Step 1 of 2) and the status.
   • What's being approved: the document, why approval was asked (for example Approval requested, or the reason for a re-approval), and the requester's note.
   • Approval: the timeline, with each step's approvers and the headline, such as Waiting on you (or Sam Turner).

3. Optional: type a note in Note (optional for approve, required to reject), such as Prices match the last order.

4. Click Approve & next.

What you'll see: a message confirms Approved. and the next request opens in the drawer. When the request has more steps, the message reads Your approval was recorded — waiting on the next step. and the request moves on to the next step's approvers. The drawer closes when nothing is left.

To move without deciding, use the up and down arrows at the top of the drawer. Click × to close it.

Reject a request

1. Open the request in the drawer.
2. In Note (optional for approve, required to reject), type the reason, at least 3 characters. For example, Wait for the corrected invoice from Meridian.
3. Click Reject.

What you'll see: a message confirms Rejected., and the drawer moves on to the next request, the same as Approve & next. The drawer closes when nothing is left. If you click Reject with no reason, the box shows A reason is required to reject.

A rejection ends the whole request: later steps aren't asked. The requester gets an Approval Decision alert with your reason. When nobody requested it by hand (the requester shows as System, for example for a purchase order raised by auto-reorder or a forecast schedule), the step's approvers and the administrators get it instead.

Use keyboard shortcuts

While the drawer is open on a computer, you can work without the mouse:

Key	What it does
J	Opens the next request.
K	Opens the previous request.
A	Approves the open request and moves to the next one, the same as Approve & next. It uses whatever is in the note, and doesn't ask you to confirm.
R	Rejects the open request, using the note as the reason, and moves to the next one.

The shortcuts don't work while your cursor is in the note box, because the letters type into the note instead. After you type a note, click outside the box or press Tab, then press the key. If you press R without a reason of at least 3 characters, the drawer says Type a reason, then press R again to reject.

Approve or reject from the row menu

You can decide without opening the drawer.

1. On the row, click the … menu.
2. Click Approve or Reject.
   • Approve asks Approve PO-0064 for $4,280.00? Click Approve to confirm.
   • Reject opens Reject approval request: Reject PO-0064. The requester is notified with your reason. Type a Reason of at least 3 characters, then click Reject.

The same menu has Open document, Send reminder and Copy link. Right-clicking a row adds Review here, which opens the drawer. To decide on several requests at once, see Approve requests in bulk.

Approve or reject on the document

Every purchase order, vendor deposit and bill under a policy has an Approval card with the same timeline. When a request is waiting on you, the card has Reject and Approve buttons.

1. Open the document, for example PO-0064 from Orders → Purchase Orders.

2. On the Approval card, click Approve.

   The Approve dialog reads Approve PO-0064 for $4,280.00. When more steps follow, it adds This records your decision on Step 1; the next step still needs its approver.

3. Optional: add a note in Note (optional), up to 1,000 characters.

4. Click Approve, or press Ctrl+Enter (⌘+Enter on a Mac).

To reject from the card, click Reject. The Reject approval request dialog reads, for example, Reject the approval request for PO-0064. Dana Reyes is notified with your reason. Type a Reason of at least 3 characters and click Reject. Reject stays unavailable until the reason is long enough.

On a purchase order, Approve in the page header approves straight away, with no dialog and no note. Vendor deposits and bills have their own buttons for approving and paying. See Request and approve a vendor deposit payment and Request and approve a bill payment.

Open a request from an alert or email

The link in an Approval Requested alert or email opens the document with the Approve dialog already open, so you can add a note and approve. If you can't approve it, for example because someone else already did, SKU.io shows the reason instead. Copy link in the queue's row menu gives the same kind of link, which is handy to send to a colleague.

Copy link in the Approval card's … menu copies the plain page address. It opens the document without the dialog.

Decide in SKU.io

Emails don't approve anything by themselves. Every decision is made in SKU.io, after you've signed in, so it's always recorded against your name.

When Approve is unavailable

If you can't approve a request, Approve is greyed out, and so is Reject. Point to the button, or look in amber just above it, to see why:

Message	What it means
Over your approval limit — the "Over $10,000" tier needs Sam Turner.	The amount is in a tier above the one you approve.
You can't approve your own request — waiting on Sam Turner.	You raised the request, and someone else can approve it.

In the queue's row menu, Approve and Reject show the shorter You're not an approver for this step. Open the request in the drawer to see the full reason. For every other message, see Why Approve is unavailable in the Approval messages reference.

If someone decided first

Two approvers can open the same request at once. If someone else decides first, or the document changes while you're looking, SKU.io refreshes the request and tells you what happened instead of recording a second decision:

• Already approved by Sam Turner 2 minutes ago — refreshed.
• The document changed and needs a new approval — review the new request — refreshed.

In the drawer, if the document changed and its request was replaced, you see This request was replaced by a newer one after the document changed — review it before deciding. Check the new amount, then decide on the new request. For every other message, see Someone acted first, or the document changed.

After a rejection

The requester decides what happens next:

• Purchase order: it stays a Draft with an Approval Rejected chip, and the Approval card shows who rejected it and why. The requester fixes it and clicks Request Approval again, which starts a new request. See Request approval for a purchase order.
• Vendor deposit or bill payment: a rejected deposit goes back to draft, and a rejected bill payment shows Payment request rejected. Either one can be changed and sent for approval again. See Request and approve a vendor deposit payment and Request and approve a bill payment.

Every decision stays under History in the queue and on the document's Approval card.

Next steps

• Approve requests in bulk
• Hand off approvals while you're away
• Get approval requests by email
• Approvals queue reference
• Approval status reference