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Object documentationSpending Limit Approval

 

A spending limit is the maximum value a shopping cart can have before it needs approval by a manager. You can configure your process schema for approval of shopping carts or purchase orders in such a way that a workflow is started when an employee's spending limit is exceeded.

 

Agent determination is based on the approval limit of the possible approvers, that is, the limit up to which an approver is allowed to approve shopping carts or purchase orders. The Business Add-In (BAdI) Define Agents provides the BAdI implementations /SAPSRM/BD_WF_SC_RR_SL (for shopping cart) and /SAPSRM/BD_WF_PO_RR_SL (for purchase order) to determine the responsible agents, depending on their approval limits.

Note Note

Both spending limits and approval limits can be defined for individual users, organizational units, or roles.

For individual users and organizational units, you define the limits in Customizing for SAP Supplier Relationship Management under Start of the navigation path SRM Server Next navigation step Cross-Application Basic Settings Next navigation step Organizational Management Next navigation step Change Organizational Plan End of the navigation path.

For individual users, you can also use transaction SU01.

You define roles under Start of the navigation path SRM Server Next navigation step Cross-Application Basic Settings Next navigation step Roles Next navigation step Define Roles End of the navigation path.

End of the note.

As soon as the process schema for spending limit approval is initiated, the BAdI Process Level Configuration determines the number of necessary process levels, depending on the total value of the shopping cart or purchase order. The BAdI provides the BAdI implementations /SAPSRM/BD_WF_CONFIG_SC_SL (for shopping cart) and/SAPSRM/BD_WF_CONFIG_PO_SL (for purchase order).

You can implement spending limit approval in two ways:

  • Approval by one manager only

    Only the approver with the highest approval limit in the list of all determined approvers receives a work item. All approvers with approval limits that are lower than the total value of the shopping cart or purchase order are omitted.

  • Step-by-step approval in ascending order of the approval limits of the managers of the organizational unit

    All determined approvers receive, one after the other, a work item with a request to approve it or reject it. The total value of the shopping cart determines the number of steps in the approval process. The list of approvers is updated dynamically after each process level. This allows flexible reaction to changes in the total value of the shopping cart. For example, approvers can be added if, during the approval process itself, the total value of the shopping cart increases beyond the approval limit of the current final approver.

Example Example

You have defined the following approval limits:

  • Manager 1: USD 1,000

  • Manager 2: USD 5,000

  • Manager 3: USD 10,000

  • Manager 4: USD 100,000

If the total value of the shopping cart is less than USD 1,000, manager 1 can approve the shopping cart, as his or her approval limit is sufficient. If the total value of the shopping cart is USD 90,000, agent determination depends on the way in which you have implemented spending limit approval:

  • Approval by one manager only

    Only manager 4 needs to approve the shopping cart. All other approvers are skipped.

  • Step-by-step approval

    All four managers have to approve the shopping cart. However, each manager can change the shopping cart. If, for example, manager 3 deletes items from the shopping cart so that the total value becomes less than USD 10,000, manager 4 is no longer required in the approval process.

End of the example.