Purchase Approvals Process

Acquisitions - Purchase Approvals Process

Many Academic libraries in India follow a purchase approval process.

Process Overview

1. Enter list of titles by vendor, capture biblio and administrative details like price, number of copies to purchase
2. Create a purchase approval request by selecting all or a subset of titles available from step 1 above. A unique approval request number is generated.
3. Print the approval request form and circulate to the library committee for approval.
4. Update the approval status (approved, rejected) of each title.
5. Create a purchase order by selecting titles that are approved. The titles may belong to different approval requests.

Approval Request Number

The unique approval request number is used to link information on the ILS to paper files and registers. The number can be auto-generated by the ILS or staff can enter the number manually.

Approval Record Use Cases

Following use cases must be supported:
Add, edit or delete approval records
Add, edit or delete titles within approval records
Update approval status (approved, rejected) for each title

Information Retrieval Use Cases

Use cases that must be supported are:
Find approval requests related to a purchase order
Find purchase orders related to an approval request
Find titles related to an approval request
Find approval requests for a vendor
View log records of updates to approval records

System Preference

A system preference will control whether approval process will be active or not.

Modifications to Koha's Order Process

Currently titles are added to an order basket from various sources - purchase suggestions, existing catalog, new record etc.
We propose to create the approval process at this stage - instead of adding titles to an order basket, titles will be added to an approval request form.
When creating or editing an order basket, only titles that are approved for purchase can be added to the basket.

Open Questions

Do we need any new permissions to control who can perform the approval tasks?
Do we need granular permissions to control access to steps within the approval process?
What are the commonly used formats for the approval request number?
Format of the approval request form (for printing)