Halfway through a demo last month, a buyer asked us to stop on the approval screen. They wanted to know what support looks like six months after go-live, when half the administrators we trained at rollout no longer work there.
The answer starts with how the rule is written, because an approval rule often names a person. Dietary POs over the threshold go to the administrator at that building, and the rule points at that administrator's login. When the administrator leaves, the rule keeps sending orders to an account nobody opens.
The dietary manager does not get a rejection, only the weekly food order marked pending on Monday and still pending on Wednesday. With meals to serve on Thursday, the dietary manager calls the food vendor and places the order by phone.
The food shows up, then the invoice, with no PO number on it. The AP clerk matches the vendor name and enters it, and the building has bought outside its contract without anyone deciding to. We wrote about how that pattern grows in maverick spending in long-term care.
Point the rule at the job
In Adelpo, an approval step can belong to a role instead of a person. The rule then says the administrator at that building approves dietary POs over the threshold, and it stays correct when someone new is in that seat. When the job changes hands, the office gives the new administrator the role.
A step can still name one person when a building wants it that way, and a rule that no longer makes sense can be deleted. We usually suggest the role, since the administrator is the part of the rule most likely to change.
Two things stay manual. Someone in the office has to assign the role to the new administrator, and someone has to open the queue and look at what was waiting when the last one left.
The role carries none of the history either. A new administrator will not know which GPO contract covers the food vendor, or why the threshold was set where it is.
Who the new administrator talks to
Every Adelpo customer gets unlimited one-on-one retraining and a named account rep. For turnover, the retraining matters more than the rollout training did, because it happens with the person who holds the job now.
A new administrator can get on a call with someone from our team, open the approval queue together, and ask about the rules they inherited. The questions are their own, which a recording made for the previous team cannot answer.
The named rep is who the building calls when a PO is stuck and nobody remembers why a rule was set up that way. Because it is the same person each time, the administrator is not explaining the account from the beginning on every call.
We do not decide your approval policy. The controller owns the approval matrix, meaning who approves which orders at each building. Our team can show a new administrator where that matrix sits in the system and what each rule does.
Two questions from that demo are worth asking any vendor. Is retraining for a new administrator included, and is it a live session or a recording? When an order is stuck, is there a named person the building calls?
We come at this from the building side too, since our founder owns and operates nursing homes. If you run purchasing across several facilities, start with a list of every approval rule by building and the name or role each one points to. Any rule that names someone who has left is the one to fix first.
Approval questions after go-live
what happens to a purchase order when the approver quits?
If the approval step names that person, the PO stays pending until someone in the office reassigns the step or removes the rule. If the step is tied to a role, the office assigns the role to whoever takes the job. Either way, someone should check what was waiting on the day the person leaves.
is it better to set approvals by role or by person?
By role in most cases, with a person assigned to it. The rule survives turnover and only the assignment changes. Keep the matrix written down by building and role, with a line on why each threshold was chosen.
is retraining included with procurement software?
That depends on the vendor, so ask before you sign. Check whether retraining is live and one-on-one or a library of recordings, and whether it is billed separately. Adelpo includes unlimited one-on-one retraining for every customer.
who do we call when an approval is stuck?
With Adelpo, the building calls its named account rep. Every customer has one, so a new administrator talks to the same person each time. The controller still decides who approves which orders at each building.