Friday Feature – Approvals Based on a Dollar Range

One of the things I love about Escape Online 5 is how it has features that cover both small and large districts. Case in point, the Approval Dollar Max in workflow approvals for vendor requisitions.
Of course all districts want to approve requisitions, but some really really big districts divvy up that chore by dollar amounts. Let’s take a look.

This is an example of a workflow approval path for vendor requisitions. It contains many levels, which the requisition works its way through before the item is ordered and the money is spent. The levels are in order, but contain room for growth (notice now the levels jump from 20 to 40) in case new processes need to be put in place.

So let’s walk through it. The first workflow approval level is 10.  This is where the budget people take a look and see if it is okay. Then, the purchasing people take a gander to make sure that the item prices are realistic. Now we get to the meat of the approval process.

First, the principal approves everything for less than $1K. If it is more than that, the department managers need to take a look at it, up to $5K. If it is more than that, then the Assistant Superintendent needs to get involved and ultimately, if it is $15k or over, the Superintendent needs to give their stamp of approval.

So if you have a requisition for $3K, it will need approval from Fiscal, Purch, and Dept Manager. It will not route to the Principal because it is over the maximum, and it will not route to the Asst. Superintendent or the Superintendent because it is below the minimum.

This type of leveling helps everyone focus on what is important, and frees them from having to review and approve requisitions that others can safely approve.

Of course, this is a fairly complex approval setup and many districts won’t need to go this far, but that is the beauty of it.  The workflow approval path can be for only one level and one person for all amounts for those smaller districts, or it can take into consideration the involved budgeting of large districts.