Purchase Requests Preferences

To set up the preferences for purchase requests:

Go to Settings on the left sidebar.
(OR)
Click Settings in the top right corner of the page.
Select Purchase Requests under Procurement.

Choose the preference for the module:

Preferences

Auto-generate Purchase Request Number

You can provide your own prefix or the auto-generated prefix, and specify a Start With number or use the auto-generated number.

Custom Status

If purchase requests in your organization include intermediate statuses for the default status Approved, you can add them by creating custom statuses.

Click + New to add more custom status and click - to delete a custom status.

General Preferences

You can allow submitters to cancel the approved and on-hold purchase requests by checking the Allow submitters to cancel approved and on-hold purchase requests box.
You can restrict the association of multiple vendors in a purchase request by checking the Restrict the association of multiple vendors in a purchase request box.
You can restrict the use of multiple currencies in a purchase request by checking the Restrict the use of multiple currencies in a purchase request box.
You can restrict selecting multiple options for a tag by checking the Restrict selection of multiple tag values for a tag in a purchase request box.
You can restrict the association of a purchase request with expenses when their categories are different by checking the Restrict association of purchase request with expenses when their categories are different box.
You can include the approval history in purchase request PDFs by checking the Include Approval History in purchase request PDFs box.

Approval Preferences

You can choose to allow approvers to approve their own purchase requests by checking the Allow approvers to approve their own purchase requests box.

Send Email & In-App Notifications

You can choose when to send email and in-app notifications.

Purchase requests are submitted: Mark this checkbox to notify employees when a purchase request is submitted.
Purchase requests are approved or rejected: Mark this checkbox to notify employees when a purchase request is approved or rejected.
Purchase requests are on-hold: Mark this checkbox to notify employees when a purchase request is marked as On Hold.
Purchase requests are canceled: Mark this checkbox to notify employees when a purchase request is canceled.
Comments are added to purchase requests: Mark this checkbox to notify employees when an approver adds comments to a purchase request.
Purchase requests are marked as processed or when marked as processed is reverted: Mark this checkbox to notify employees when a purchase request is marked as processed or when mark as processed is reverted.

Chatlet Preferences

Chatlet enables you to initiate discussions with other employees in Zoho Spend. This feature is powered by Zoho Cliq, an application that makes collaboration and communication easy for teams. Choose the employees for whom you want to enable Chatlet and click Save.

Fields

While creating a purchase request in Zoho Spend, you may be prompted to enter data in several fields. These fields might not be required or sufficient for your organization. In order to make your expense reporting experience more efficient, Zoho Spend provides you with the ability to customise existing fields or add more fields based on your organization’s needs.

You can add more fields by creating custom fields to receive additional information and choose the input fields your employees would view.

Approvals

You can set up either hierarchical approval or custom approval based on the approval process for the purchase requests in your organization.

Links and Buttons

In Zoho Spend, there are default buttons that are used to execute pre-defined functions. If you want to create a new button apart from the default buttons provided in Zoho Spend, you can create a new custom button and define a set of custom actions that can be executed when you click the custom button.

Custom links are external links that you can configure in Zoho Spend, which when clicked, will take you to external websites or resources in a new tab. You can also add placeholders in these links to redirect employees to a specific record or page.

Page Layouts

Customize the purchase request form by creating page layouts to determine the fields shown when employees create new purchase requests.

Validation Rules

Validation Rules in Zoho Spend help you enforce data integrity by setting restrictions on the values employees can enter. When an employee tries to save a transaction, the rule checks if the data in the field that you have set a restriction for meets your predefined conditions.

If the value entered in the field violates the conditions you’ve set, an alert message will be displayed, and the transaction will not be created. You can also set multiple criteria for a single validation rule.