About Signatories

Signatories are used in the approval processes for requisitions and reimbursements. The process works the same way for both requisitions and reimbursements.

Purchasing signatories are used with requisitions and are created in Purchasing & AP > Purchasing > Signatories. Payables signatories are used with reimbursements and are created in Purchasing & AP > Payables > Signatories.

Signatures

Signatures are added to documents electronically.

Once a signature is provided, it’s never removed from the document even if the document is later re-evaluated.

Users who will be added to signatories can upload a file containing a picture of their signature to be printed on purchase orders. You also have the option to auto-generate a signature based on your login ID. Click here for instructions.

If no file has been uploaded when a user signs a document — and the signature is to print on the document — the document lists the user ID.

How signatories work

When a requisition or reimbursement is submitted, it enters a process to determine which signatories, if any, should be assigned to it.

The process reviews every signatory to determine if the document meets the signatory's criteria.

• When the document meets a signatory's criteria, that signatory is added to the document. All signatories whose criteria are met are added to the document.

• If no signatories have been added by the end of the process, the default signatory is added to the document.

• If there isn't a default signatory, the document is automatically considered approved. This feature is especially useful for small districts.

Email notifications

• You can configure the system to send emails to users on a signatory.

• If the email sending has been configured, once a signatory has been added to a document, emails go first to all users on the signatory with the lowest signature sequence that blocks the review process until the signature is provided.

• Once those signatures have been provided, emails are sent to the users on the signatory with the next lowest signature sequence that blocks the review process.

• Once the signatories that block the review process have been satisfied, emails are sent to the users on the remaining signatories.

If significant changes are made to a document, all signatories are re-evaluated and will be removed from the document if they no longer apply. Examples of such changes to a requisition are changing the amount, date, ship to, and account code.

Once all required signatures have been added to the document, it is submitted to the approval queue. If three signatures are required and I can provide two of them, once I sign the document, both signatures are provided. For example, if I'm both the budget director and an alternate for the superintendent, once I sign the document, both signatures will be provided.

Once the requisition or reimbursement has been approved, an email that can include the document PDF file is sent to the document creator and all users who signed the document.

Definitions

Default signatory: Any signatory without defined criteria is considered a default signatory. It typically has a low signature sequence number, blocks the review process until provided, prints on purchase orders, and has users designated on the Signatories tab.

Signature sequence: A number to indicate the order in which signatories must approve the requisition. Emails are first sent to users on signatories with the lowest signature sequence numbers. In a three-level approval process, we recommend using the numbers 0-10 for the first level, 11-19 for the second level, and 20-29 for the final level.

Blocking: Options are Blocks review process until provided and Does NOT block review process. In a three-level approval process, you will want to designate the first two levels of signatory as blocking levels because you wouldn't want the final signatory to approve the requisition if the signatory on the first or second level was not going to approve it. For example, you wouldn't want the superintendent to sign the document if the budget director isn't going to sign it.

Print setting: Applies to purchasing signatories only. Options are Does NOT print on purchasing documents and Prints on purchasing documents. You may want three users to sign the document, but only one signature to print on the document.

Criteria mode: Options are text-based and editor-based. The text-based editor requires you to know the exact field names as designated in the software, including the proper punctuation — knowledge that very few users possess. The editor-based criteria feature allows you to create criteria without a knowledge of either the exact field names or writing regular expressions. A knowledge of regular expressions does allow you to write more concise, complicated criteria, but you can get the same results without that knowledge.

Criteria: Condition statements that determine whether or not the signatory is added to documents. When criteria are changed and the criteria's scope is set to Apply to ALL outstanding purchase requisitions or reimbursements, the system re-evaluates all outstanding requisitions or reimbursements against the changed criteria. If the signatory no longer applies, the system then re-evaluates all signatories.

Users: Each user on a signatory can also have an alternate who could approve the document when the primary user is out of the office. All users on a signatory will receive emails, and any user on the signatory can provide their signature. For reimbursements, each user on a signatory must also have an alternate who can sign the document because document creators aren't allowed to sign their own reimbursement requests.

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