What is a purchase approval workflow?

Example

Tomas requests a $3,400 label printer. The workflow:

• Submitted: the amount is $3,400, so the rules require his team lead and the finance manager.
• The lead approves within a day.
• The finance manager checks the budget, which has $5,000 left, and approves.
• The request becomes an order. The budget now shows $3,400 committed.
• If anyone rejects it, the requester is told why and nothing is spent.

In Atta

The workflow is a status table plus the approval chain. Who may move a request to each status is enforced on the server: an answer, the checkout capability, or the requester with an admin's override. Hiding a button in the UI is courtesy only.

The agent's approvals happen in the conversation. Buttons in a chat send messages or answer the paused run and never call a Server Action, so the transcript is the record. Slack and WhatsApp request buttons call the page's own answer function. Approvers are notified through the inbox, and by email according to each person's settings. See purchase approvals.

Designing one

Write down, per amount band, who answers and what happens if they reject. Then test it with a recent purchase. If it takes longer than the purchase was worth to approve, the workflow is too heavy for that band.