Withdraw a request or send a reminder
While an approval request is waiting, the person who raised it can take it back, for example to fix a mistake, or nudge the approvers with a reminder. Both work the same way for purchase orders, vendor deposits and bill payments.
In the example used throughout this chapter, Dana Reyes raised PO-0065 for $18,650.00. It's over $10,000, so it waits on Sam Turner alone.
Before you begin
- You must be the person who raised the request. Administrators and anyone with Approval Policies → Override & re-route can also withdraw a request or send a reminder.
- You can withdraw a request only before anyone has approved any part of it.
- You can send a reminder at most once every 4 hours for each request.
Withdraw a request
- Open the purchase order, deposit or bill.
- On its Approval card, click Withdraw. On a bill, the Approval card sits inside Payment Authorization.
- In Withdraw approval request, read "The approvers no longer need to act. You can request approval again later."
- Click Withdraw.
SKU.io shows "Approval request withdrawn." The approvers no longer see the request under Orders → Approvals, and it shows as Withdrawn under History.
You can also withdraw from the document's header:
- On a purchase order, click Withdraw Request. This withdraws straight away, without asking you to confirm.
- On a vendor deposit, click Withdraw Request, optionally enter a Reason, and click Withdraw Request in the Withdraw Payment Request dialog. The reason goes into the deposit's activity log.
What happens to the document
| Document | After you withdraw |
|---|---|
| Draft purchase order | It's a plain draft again, with Request Approval available. |
| Open purchase order with changes waiting for re-approval | It stays open and keeps the changes, but they're still not approved. Re-sending to the supplier and new deposits stay blocked, and an amber banner reads, for example, "Re-approval withdrawn by Dana Reyes — revert the changes or request approval again." Undoing the changes unblocks it. |
| Vendor deposit | It returns to Draft. Edit it and send it again whenever you're ready. |
| Bill payment | If an earlier request already approved part of the bill, it goes back to Approved with that amount still payable. Otherwise it goes back to Not Requested. |
To find out more about changes on approved documents, see How re-approval works.
If you can't withdraw
| Message | What to do |
|---|---|
| "This request already has approvals and can no longer be withdrawn — an administrator can re-route it." | Someone approved an earlier step. Ask an administrator to re-route it, or ask the next approver to reject it. |
| "Only the requester or an administrator can withdraw this request." | Ask the person who raised it, or an administrator. |
Send a reminder
- Open the purchase order, deposit or bill.
- On its Approval card, click Send reminder.
SKU.io shows "Reminder sent." Everyone who can approve the current step gets a Reminder alert, for example "Reminder: Purchase order awaiting your approval", saying the document "is still waiting on your approval". The card then shows when the last reminder went out, for example "Reminder sent · 3h ago (2 sent)". The count includes the automatic reminders from your approval rules.
You can also send one from Orders → Approvals: click the row's ⋯ menu, then Send reminder.
A reminder reaches only the approvers on the current step and anyone covering for them. If they haven't turned on email for approval alerts, they get it only as an in-app alert, which is easy to miss. See Get approval requests by email.
When the button is unavailable
| What you see | Why |
|---|---|
| "A reminder went out recently — you can send another in a few hours." | A reminder, sent by someone or automatically, went out less than 4 hours ago. |
| "Only the requester (Dana Reyes) or an admin can send reminders." | You didn't raise the request, and you aren't an administrator. |
From the Approvals queue, the same limits show as "A reminder was sent recently — try again in a few hours." and "Only the requester or an administrator can send a reminder."
You can still send a reminder after a request has been escalated to administrators. If a request has waited a long time because nobody can approve it, a reminder won't help. See Override or re-route a stuck request.
Next steps
- Approve or reject a request
- Request approval for a purchase order
- Set approval rules for automatic reminders and escalation
- Approval status reference