The approvals process gives your corporate print buyers more control over the print orders placed for their organization. This article details how the approvals process works on your site.

A Necessity For Corporate Users

Managing expenses is an important strategy in any business. So it's natural that sooner or later you'll have a corporate print buyer request to set up a process that gives them the ability to indicate whether or not an order submitted to you by one of their employees should actually be completed. That's where the approvals process comes in.

A Convenience For You

Wouldn't it be awful if you were halfway through a job, only to get a call from the print buyer's corporate office to say that the order was not authorized? We agree. With the approvals process, you receive your notification that an order has been placed only after all necessary approvals have already been received.

Assigning an Approver

Approvers can be assigned to a Company, Branch or individual. To assign an approver:

1. Choose "Accounts" from the Control Center's top menu bar.
2. Click on "Customers" in the sidebar.
3. Use the People tools in the sidebar to find the Company, Branch or individual contact you wish to update.
4. Click the Edit button to the right of the Company, Branch or individual you wish to set an approver for.
5. Click on the "Approvers" tab.
6. Use the Company, Branch, and Contact menus to select the approver you wish to assign.
7. Once you have the approver selected, click the "Add an Approver" button.

   Note: More than one approver can be assigned (just choose another contact and click "Add an Approver"), but approval from any contact designated as an approver will move the order through.

What Happens When a User Submits an Order Requiring Approval

1. Print buyer submits an order from the shopping cart.
2. The order then moves through the price approval process that is assigned to the customer.

   Note: If E-Commerce add-on is subscribed to and your website is setup to take Credit Card Payments, a customer needing approval can select "Credit Card" but will see this message:



3. A notification is sent out to each approver assigned to the print buyer to inform them that an order requires their approval.
4. The approver follows the link in the email that directs them to the order's details.

   Note: The approver can also directly access all orders requiring their approval by logging into their account and going to the "Waiting For Your Response" tab within the Orders tab.

5. The approver uses the on-screen tools to Approve or Cancel the order, and also to input an (optional) explanation of their decision.
6. If the approver also has approvers assigned to their own account, those approvers will now get a notification that their approval is needed. This process continues until the order is approved by somebody that does not have any other approvers assigned to them.
7. Once the final approval has been received, the customer will then be notified that their order has been approved.

   Note: We do not store any credit card information on our website. So until the Order is ready for production, your customer will not be able to submit credit card information. They can submit this later, once the Order has been approved, via their Account Summary "Orders Available for Online Payment" section:



8. Lastly, the Customer Rep associated with the print buyer's account (along with any other contacts assigned to receive notifications for the print buyer's activity) will be notified that an order has been placed.