Troubleshoot supplier approval

Cannot see Approve suppliers menu option

You need the Approve suppliers: List permission assigned to you before you can view the Approve suppliers page.

If you've been assigned the permission and still do not see the Approve suppliers option in the Accounts Payable > All menu, reload your browser page to refresh you options. If this does not resolve the issue, log out and log back in again.

A supplier disappeared from the Approve suppliers page

All users with Approve suppliers permissions see the same list of suppliers on the Approve suppliers page. When an approver approves or declines a supplier, that supplier is removed from the approval queue for all approvers.

What actions can I take based on supplier state?

Depending on where a supplier record is within the workflow, it can have a state of Submitted, Approved, or Declined. Some actions related to a supplier can only be done with when the supplier is approved.

See the table that follows for common actions and the supplier state required.

Supplier approval: Actions you can take using supplier information, based on state
Action	Allowed in supplier state
Save transactions as drafts	Submitted, Approved, Declined
Post transactions	Approved only
Edit posted transactions	Approved only
Select transactions for payment	Approved only
Receive incoming transactions from AP automation	Submitted, Approved, Declined
Reference the supplier in a transaction outside of Accounts Payable or Purchasing	Submitted, Approved, Declined
Edit the supplier information record	Submitted, Approved, Declined, as long as all payment requests for the supplier are complete. Editing submits changes for approval.

Can I use supplier approval with AP Automation?

AP Automation creates transactions in draft mode, which means that supplier approval does not conflict with the process of automated AP purchase invoice creation.

However, before you can post the automated transaction, the supplier must be approved.

Suppliers updated with a CSV import were not submitted for approval

Supplier 1099 transaction update by CSV import does not support supplier approval. The status for suppliers updated with these import templates remains unchanged after import.

Did not receive notifications for requests for approval or supplier approval notifications, after setting up user preferences

If you are not receiving notifications of pending suppliers or supplier approvals after setting your user preferences, your admin user might not have configured supplier approval to include email notifications. Contact your admin user to request that Email notifications be selected in the Supplier approval section on Configure Accounts Payable.

I forgot to designate an approver. How can they see suppliers already submitted?

When you give a user Approve suppliers permission, you give them access to all suppliers in the Approve suppliers queue. This includes suppliers that were submitted for approval before you added the approver, provided the supplier has not been approved or declined.

How can I tell whether a supplier was approved automatically when the feature was configured or reviewed and approved after enablement?

You can identify how the supplier was approved by examining either the History tab or the audit trail in the Supplier record.

History tab

Approval method	Approval type	Action	Comments
Automatic approval	Config enabled	Approved	System approved
User-initiated approval, through Supplier approval page	Create or Update	Approved	Any comments provided by the approver

Audit trail

Approval method	Action	Source	After
Automatic approval	Workflow	System	Approved
User-initiated approval, through Supplier approval page	Workflow	User interface	Approved

You can tell how the was done by looking at the Source column for the approval entry in the audit trail:

System: The approval was triggered automatically when user configured the feature.
User Interface: The user approved the supplier from the Supplier approval page.

Audit trail shows two submit actions with no approve or decline action in between

Two or more sequential submit actions in the audit trail indicate the submitter edited the supplier record and resubmitted it.

This functionality allows a user to add information that they might have forgotten or make corrections, before waiting for an approver to review and decline an incomplete record.

I updated suppliers and they are in a Submitted state, but I don't see them in my approval queue

If you are both the submitter and the approver, the suppliers you submit appear in the approval queue for other approvers, only. You can't approve your own changes.

In general, best practice is for approvers not to have add or edit permissions for suppliers. However, if you have approvers who must be allowed to create and update suppliers, make sure you have more than one approver.