Design a purchase approval process

---
name: design-a-purchase-approval-process
category: money
description: Create proportionate purchasing controls from request through payment, with clear authority and audit evidence. Use when spend is inconsistent, slow, risky, or weakly documented.
---

# design-a-purchase-approval-process

Control material risks without making every purchase equally burdensome. Separate requesting, approving, receiving, and paying where practical.

## When to use

- Use for company purchasing, purchase orders, vendor onboarding, budget controls, and exception handling.
- Bring in finance, legal, security, privacy, tax, or procurement reviewers according to risk.

## Procedure

1. Map the current request-to-payment flow, roles, systems, common delays, losses, and regulatory or contractual constraints.
2. Segment purchases by amount, category, data access, security, commitment term, geography, and reversibility.
3. Define required request fields: purpose, owner, budget, vendor, quote, total commitment, alternatives, renewal, data, and delivery.
4. Set an approval matrix by risk and delegated authority, including conflicts and self-approval prohibitions.
5. Define when competitive quotes, contract review, security review, purchase orders, or executive approval are required.
6. Separate vendor creation, request, approval, receipt confirmation, invoice entry, and payment as proportionately as staffing allows.
7. Match contract, purchase order, receipt, invoice, and payment; document permitted tolerances.
8. Design urgent and exceptional paths with reason, temporary authority, expiry, and retrospective review.
9. Create service targets, status visibility, evidence retention, periodic access review, and exception metrics.
10. Pilot on real purchase types and fix bottlenecks before broad rollout.

## Failure plan

- Do not split purchases to evade thresholds or use emergency paths for ordinary delay.
- If full segregation is impossible, add independent review and visible compensating controls.
- Do not approve from a quote alone when commitment, renewal, data, or exit terms are unknown.
- Preserve rejected and overridden decisions with reasons.

## Done

- Roles, thresholds, required evidence, reviews, exceptions, and retention are explicit
- No participant can silently request, approve, receive, and pay the same material purchase
- The process is tested for both control effectiveness and cycle time