The maintenance director at a nursing home puts in a request for a replacement water heater on a Friday morning. The administrator is in a care plan meeting until three, and the supplier wants a PO number before the unit ships. The request sits in an inbox until someone with the right signature opens it.
A purchase order approval workflow is the set of rules that decides who signs a purchase request, in what order, before it becomes a purchase order. In a nursing home the rules can turn on the amount of the request or on where the department's budget stands, and a signature can belong to a role instead of a named person.
Who approves a purchase order in a nursing home?
Who approves a purchase order is set by the operator, one step at a time, and the steps can run as an ordered chain. A chain can put the department head first, the administrator above one amount, and corporate above a higher amount, with the amounts set differently by building and by department. The limit for dietary in one building does not have to match the limit for maintenance in another.
Each step can belong to a role, such as administrator, or to a named person. A step that belongs to a role stays in place when the person in that job changes. A step set on a person can be removed when it no longer fits. What that difference means in the month after an administrator resigns is covered in What happens to approvals when an administrator leaves.
What should the approver see before signing?
An approver should be able to see, on one screen, who asked and which department the order is for. The same screen should show each line with its price and what the order does to that department's budget. A request that shows only a vendor name and a total gives the administrator nothing to check the lines against.
Approve and reject are not the only two answers an approver needs. Sometimes the water heater is the right call but the quote came from a vendor the building does not use. The administrator should be able to send the request back to the maintenance director with a note. The maintenance director then fixes the vendor and resubmits instead of writing the whole request again.
How does a purchase order approval tie to the budget?
An approval rule can fire on where the department's budget stands, not only on the size of the one request in front of the approver. The two thresholds check different things.
| Threshold | What the rule checks | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Amount | The size of this one request | A request above the amount set for that building and department goes to the next approver |
| Budget position | Where the department's budget stands when the request is submitted | A rule fires when the department is over 90% or 110% of its budget |
A per patient day budget in a nursing home moves with the census, so the budget position a rule reads moves as the census syncs each day. A request that passed the rule on the first of the month can trip the same rule two weeks later with the same amount on it. How that budget moves from day to day is in How a per patient day budget moves when the census moves.
An approval rule cannot tell whether the building needed the water heater. It settles who has to say yes before the PO goes out. It signs off on the price on the order, not the price on the invoice that arrives after delivery. A vendor that bills above the PO price is flagged at the invoice, in the three-way match, covered in What a three-way match compares, and where it breaks.
How purchase order approval works in Adelpo
In Adelpo, an approval rule can trigger on the amount, the department, the vendor, or the department's budget position, and each step belongs to a role or to a named person. The approver sees the requester, the department, each line with its price, and the budget impact, and can approve, reject, or send the request back with a note. The per patient day budget behind a budget rule adjusts daily from the census sync with PointClickCare, MatrixCare, and other EHRs. A rule is checked when the request is submitted. A submitted cart does not count against the budget; once it is approved it becomes a PO and counts, and Adelpo updates the budget again from the invoices that come in. A request that is sent back and resubmitted starts again at the first step of the chain. A price that later comes in above the order is flagged on the invoice and listed on the Price Discrepancies Report, and an approval-rule trigger can be set on that mismatch.
Questions controllers ask about purchase order approval
do approval limits have to be the same for every building?
Approval limits do not have to be the same for every building. An amount threshold can be set per building and per department, so dietary in one building can carry a different limit from maintenance in another building under the same operator. In Adelpo each building can have its own chain, with different steps as well as different amounts, even under the same organization.
does the person placing the order see the budget before they submit?
In Adelpo, anyone with access to a cart sees the per patient day budget impact in the cart's Budgets tab while the cart is being built, before any approver is involved. The approver then sees the budget impact again on the approval screen, next to each line and its price.
does a punchout order from Amazon or Gordon Food Service go through approval?
In Adelpo a punchout order goes through approval. Punchout is live with Amazon Business, Gordon Food Service, and US Foodservice. Punchout orders go through Adelpo's approvals and budgets.
do services and utilities need a purchase order too?
A service or utility invoice that was never ordered through a cart carries no link to a PO, so the purchase order approval chain never saw it. Adelpo can set up an internal PO for a service or a utility as part of the customer's setup. Those internal POs usually go through without an approval step, though a customer can route them through one, and they count toward the department's budget.