When a cart needs approval, prices and item availability stay locked for 7 days, including weekends. Prime Business Medium and Enterprise customers have an extended 14 day approval window.
Creating purchasing workflow approval
Control your organization's purchasing
Maintaining compliance with your organization’s purchasing policies and procedures can be tough, but with Amazon Business' smart business buying features, it doesn’t have to be. Guided Buying's buying policies turn procurement rules into easy-to-follow visual signposts for buyers, while Approvals allows organizations to maintain control over spending without the bottlenecks.
-
Create buying policies
Create buying policies with Guided Buying to control how buyers purchase on Amazon Business. These policies steer buyers to the right products and sellers, as well as empower administrators to set the appropriate limits around orders.
-
Build approval workflows
Administrators can designate one or more approvers to review purchases. Approvers have 7 days, including weekends, to review and approve orders. Prime Business Medium and Enterprise customers have an extended 14 day approval window.
Types of buying policies
You can create policies to prefer, restrict, and block specific products or sellers and to configure approval workflows. Guided Buying and Approvals is available to all Amazon Business customers,
-
Preferred policies
Mark items as “Preferred by your organization” and show them in the “Preferred by your Organization” section of search results.
-
Restricted policies
Add messages to certain items to warn buyers or require approvals to purchase.
-
Blocked policies
Stop buyers from purchasing specific items and from specific sellers.
Guided Buying overview:
Maximize cost savings and drive purchasing compliance at your organization with Guided Buying and Buying Policies. Administrators can create policies based on sellers, orders, and products, and configure Approval Workflows based on specific purchasing thresholds. Furthermore, you can prefer, restrict, and block specific sellers, products, and product categories.
- Display messaging directs users within the shopping and checkout experience to answer the question "what can I buy?"
- Search for and discover suppliers by a variety of factors including federal and state diversity certifications, as well as by entering a known supplier’s name directly to save them as a preferred supplier.
- Administrators can also restrict debarred sellers and product categories based on UNSPSC taxonomy. Each policy can display a custom message alerting users that the item may not comply with your company’s purchasing policies, and approval workflows can be configured based off of restricted category policies.
- Restricting a category does not prevent a purchase, but adds a warning. You must add an approver to route orders with restricted items for further review. The approver will make the decision regarding which items can be fulfilled.
Finally, you can block debarred sellers and product categories to prevent end users from adding specific products to their cart. The add to cart option will appear greyed out for any product categories that are blocked. If a buyer needs to purchase a blocked item, you can either mark that specific product as preferred to remove the blocked status, or update the policy to be restricted so they can add the product to their cart.
Configure spend limits :
Start by selecting Business Settings from the Hello menu. Go to Buying Policies and Approvals in the Buying Policies section. If you manage multiple groups, confirm you're in the right group using the dropdown menu, as policies work at the group level.
Create your policy:
- Go to Buying Policies and Approvals in the Buying Policies section
- Select "Add Policy"
- Choose "Order Policies," then "Spending Limits for Orders"
- Name your policy
- Write a message for your buyers
- Set your spending limit (choose "all orders" if you want to review every purchase)
- Choose your approvers (they must already be registered on the business account)
- Save your policy
When an order needs approval, all designated approvers get notified, but only one person at each level needs to approve it. Orders stay in the approval queue for 7 days, keeping the same prices and quantities during this time. If approvers don't review the order within 7 days, it cancels automatically. Buyers can submit again, but prices and quantities might change.
You can change these settings anytime .To create approval rules, you need administrator access for your group. Check with your account administrator if you're unsure about your permissions.
Approving requests :
Administrators can set up approval workflows in Amazon Business to help manage buying requests. When buyers submit orders for approval, approvers get notifications by email, on their dashboard, and when they log in.
When a cart needs approval, prices and item availability stay locked for 7 days, including weekends. Each approver must review the request within this time, or the cart will cancel. Buyers can submit their cart again, but prices and quantities might change. On the order details page, approvers can check the shipping address, payment method, and all requested items. Some organizations may also show a PO field.
Approvers can reject single items while letting other items move forward, but must reject the whole order if the shipping address or payment method is wrong. When rejecting orders, it helps to explain why in the comments so buyers know how to fix and resubmit their request. Buyers will receive an email with a link to rebuild rejected carts.
After approval, buyers receive a confirmation email, and their order moves to fulfillment.
