Requisition Approval Process; Approver Level Time Out process

I am looking to see if anyone has a process or solution in place for when a requisition goes through all of the required approval levels due to exceeding time limits and ultimately end up back at the buyers In-Basket (we have them set at approval level 6). We have buyers who back up other buyers for vacation, etc. and may approve a req due to not seeing the system generated e-mail which notifies the buyer of the time limit exception. A req can be approved w/o true authorization if this occurs. Any ideas on how to improve our process?

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Comments

unknown

We have a backup level - in your case level 6-Bkup - that generates an email with "BACKUP: " in the first word of the subject. This allows buyers to set up a rule to delete them, and a different section of inbasket to monitor when covering for others.

unknown

We use a little bit of a different process - we actually have the requisitions un-release upon timing out at all approval levels. This actually has worked really well for us - it's forced our approvers to stay on top of their queues, as otherwise the requisition never makes it out the door.

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jreese

I have the flow route it back to the highest approval level that the requisition requires to be approved as well as send an email to our Procurement department informing them that the requisition did not get approved.

dechevar

We do not allow buyers to generate POs unless the requisition has been approved by operations. They are not approvers in our system as they are not budget owners. Our requisitions route through operations management for approval. Each level has 72 hours to approve. If the requisition escalates to the department VP for approval and they do not approve in 72 hours, the requisiton unreleases and notifies the requester. Buyers do not see the requisition in PO23/20 until it has been approved.

unknown

Sorry - I didn't mention what we actually do.

An approver has 2 weeks to approve a req. They get a reminder at 10 days and one 24 hours out. If it expires, the requisition is rejected and the user receives an email stating it was due to approver inactivity.

We do not escalate the routine supply reqs. This is mainly because we are JIT and if it hasn't been ordered within two weeks, they are either out or have found another source. This is also why the buyers need to be able to go in and pull critical need orders from the system with email justification.

jon-athey

Buyers are not approvers in our system. We escalate to the next level approver after 48 hours of inaction. But escalation can only happen once until the approval action has been taken for that level. So if level 1 doesn't approve it will sit in level 2's inbasket forever until they take action. I have a Crystal report I use to monitor all the reqs waiting for approval. If I see one that's been out there a while I'll either restart the req through or resume the branch for the level that's stalled. The buyers also have access to this report and some will contact the approver to see what's holding it up.

Another thing that helps reduce the bottleneck is I and N type items do not need approval. Only X and S type but only if the req total is > $500. So if there's a combination of I/N with X/S on the req it will need approval. About 12% of all reqs created need approval.

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