How to Approve Purchase Orders
- Bogdan Büchner
- Jan 1, 2026
- 2 min read
Approving Purchase Orders is an important part of the purchasing workflow. DPO gives approvers a central place to review pending documents and take the required action without losing track of open approvals. The fastest way to manage your pending approvals is through your Personal Approval List.
Access your Personal Approval List
You can find your Personal Approval List on the right-hand side of the DPO menu.
It contains all Purchase Orders, invoices and expenses for which you are currently the next approver in the workflow. This gives you a clear overview of documents waiting for your decision and helps prevent unnecessary delays for other users.
Review the approval chain
When you open a Purchase Order, the approval chain is displayed at the top of the page. This shows where the Purchase Order is currently positioned within the approval process and allows you to see the relevant approval stages.
Review supplier and creator information
Before making a decision, review the Purchase Order details carefully. On the left-hand side of the page, you can see the supplier information. On the right-hand side, DPO displays information about the person who created the Purchase Order. If you have a question, you can click on the creator’s name to send them an email directly.
Check the Purchase Order items
Further down the page, you can review all Purchase Order items. If you have been assigned responsibility for entering account codes, make sure the appropriate account code has been entered for each relevant item before proceeding.
Add comments before approving
DPO allows you to add either an approval comment or a user comment before completing your decision. Any previous comments connected to the Purchase Order are also displayed, giving you additional context before you approve or decline it.
Approve, decline or send the Purchase Order back
Once you have reviewed all relevant information, you can choose to:
Approve the Purchase Order
Decline the Purchase Order
In some cases, you may also have the option to send the Purchase Order back to a previous approver. If you return a Purchase Order, include a comment explaining why it is being sent back.
Keep your approvals organized
Using the Personal Approval List gives you one central place to see the Purchase Orders, invoices and expenses waiting for your approval. From there, you can review the approval chain, check all relevant Purchase Order details, add comments and complete your decision directly in DPO.
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