Purchase Orders — Workflow

Overview

A purchase order is created by a purchasing team member from an approved requisition or logistic plan. It goes through an automatic approval routing based on configurable monetary thresholds, can be sent to the supplier by email, and is finalized once all items are delivered and fully paid.

Note

This feature follows SARA's standard record lifecycle model. See: Workflows & Pipelines

Roles involved

Purchasing team (edit) — Creates, continues, modifies, sends, and cancels POs. Manages invoices and payments. Finalizes POs.
Finance approver (finance approval) — Reviews and approves or rejects POs pending finance approval (APFI).
Direction approver (management approval) — Reviews and approves or rejects POs pending direction approval (APDR).
Supplier rater (rating) — Can rate the supplier after the PO is complete.

Status lifecycle

Status	Acronym	Meaning
In progress	INPG	Draft — saved but not yet submitted to approval
Pending finance	APFI	Submitted and awaiting Finance approval
Pending direction	APDR	Finance approved; awaiting Management/Direction approval
Approved	APPR	Fully approved and ready to be sent to supplier
Paid with credit	PWCR	Approved and charged against the supplier's credit line
Partial payment	PPAY	Invoice or payment registered, but not yet fully paid/invoiced
Paid	PAID	Fully invoiced and fully paid — eligible for finalization
Finalized	FINA	Closed
Cancelled	CANC	Cancelled at any point before finalization

Rejection

When an approver rejects a PO, it returns to INPG (not a separate status). The rejection reason is stored in reject_description. The purchasing team must edit and resubmit it.

Info

For system-wide status guidance, see: Status

Status diagram

stateDiagram-v2
    [*] --> INPG : Saved (draft)
    INPG --> APFI : Submitted, total ≥ Finance threshold
    INPG --> APPR : Submitted, total < Finance threshold
    INPG --> PWCR : Submitted, credit, total < thresholds
    INPG --> CANC : Cancelled
    APFI --> APDR : Finance approved, total ≥ Direction threshold
    APFI --> APPR : Finance approved, total < Direction threshold
    APFI --> PWCR : Finance approved, credit, total < Direction threshold
    APFI --> INPG : Finance rejected
    APDR --> APPR : Direction approved
    APDR --> PWCR : Direction approved, pay with credit
    APDR --> INPG : Direction rejected
    APPR --> PPAY : Partial invoice or partial payment registered
    PWCR --> PPAY : Partial invoice registered
    PPAY --> PAID : Fully invoiced and fully paid
    APPR --> PAID : Fully invoiced and fully paid (direct, no partial)
    PWCR --> PAID : Fully invoiced (credit already paid)
    PAID --> FINA : Finalized by purchasing team
    APPR --> CANC : Cancelled
    PPAY --> CANC : Cancelled
    PWCR --> CANC : Cancelled
    CANC --> [*]
    FINA --> [*]

Workflow

Creating a PO

POs are created from the Requisition Administration screen by the purchasing team, not from this screen. From Requisition Administration, the purchaser selects pending items from an approved requisition and clicks New PO to open the PO creation form.

The creation form has four sections:

General — Supplier, short description, additional details, reference quote, payment conditions (immediate / net + days), urgent flag, CFDI usage type, advance payment percentage, PDF language, attention to, pay with credit, delivery address, credit card link, notes from requisitioner
Budget — Department/project and budget item (pre-filled from the requisition)
Items — Inherited from the requisition. The purchasing team sets unit prices, SKU, delivery dates, and tracking relevance per item. Extra costs and discounts can be added as line items.
Files — Attach quote and other supporting files

Save creates the PO as INPG. Send submits it and triggers automatic approval routing.

A signature must be on file for the purchasing user's collaborator profile before they can send (or approve) a PO that has a PDF language configured.

Automatic approval routing on Send

On submission, SARA compares the PO total (converted to the internal company's base currency if needed) against the thresholds configured in Control Panel → Approval settings for that internal company:

Condition	Resulting status
Total < Finance threshold	APPR (auto-approved)
Total ≥ Finance threshold	APFI (sent to finance approvers)

If paying with credit and total is below both thresholds: - PWCR (credit withdrawn immediately from the supplier credit line)

Finance approval (APFI)

A finance approver reviews the PO via the Review action → Review modal. The footer shows Approve and Reject buttons.

Approve: SARA checks the total against the Direction threshold:
If total < Direction threshold → APPR (or PWCR if credit)
If total ≥ Direction threshold → APDR (notification email sent to direction approvers)
Reject: PO returns to INPG with a rejection reason. Purchasing team is notified.

Direction approval (APDR)

A direction approver reviews and approves or rejects in the same Review modal.

Approve → APPR (or PWCR if credit)
Reject → INPG

Sending to supplier

Once APPR (or PWCR/PPAY), the purchasing team can:

Generate PDF to produce the formatted PO document.
Send email PO to email it directly to the supplier from SARA.

After the email is sent (email_sent = 1), the Create new version action becomes available. Modify PO is no longer available once the email has been sent.

Managing invoices and payments

From the Review modal (available for statuses APPR/APFI/APDR/PPAY/PAID/FINA), the purchasing team can:

Add invoice — Register a supplier invoice (amount, date, file)
Add payment — Register a completed or pending payment (amount, date, method, card/account)
Register — Mark a pending payment as completed
Edit / Delete — Correct or remove invoices/payments

The PO status is recalculated automatically after each invoice or payment: - Any partial invoice or payment → PPAY - Total invoice = total PO and total payment = total PO → PAID - Non-deductible PO: fully paid (regardless of invoice) → PAID

Finalization

When the PO reaches PAID status, the purchasing team can click Finish in the Review modal footer to move it to FINA.

Versioning

A new version (PO.XXXX.VN) can be created when: - Email has been sent to the supplier (email_sent = 1), OR - Status is PAID or FINA

New versions are independent records but share the same PO number. Files from prior versions are accessible in the Review modal under Files from other versions.

Cancellation

Cancel is available on any status except CANC. Cancelling a PWCR PO returns the credit to the supplier's available credit balance.

Notifications

Trigger	Recipients
PO submitted, total ≥ Finance threshold	Finance approvers (users configured in Approval settings)
PO finance-approved, total ≥ Direction threshold	Direction approvers (users configured in Approval settings)