How do I request a parts order, and who approves it?
Last verified October 18, 2026
Open Finance > Orders, click Request parts, add your items and click Submit request. Anyone whose role has Approve & place orders can approve it, but not their own request if someone else on the team can.
You need: Request parts & orders (on for everyone by default)
Submit a request
- Go to Finance > Orders.
- Click Request parts. On a phone it's the round button in the corner.
- Type the part name in Item. To order several things at once, click Add another item; the first field then becomes the request Title (for example "Drivetrain rebuild").
- For each item, fill in the vendor, quantity, price per unit and budget category. Paste a product link and the vendor, name, price and part number usually fill themselves in.
- Pick a Priority (Low, Normal, High or Urgent) and, if you know it, a Needed by date.
- Add Notes for anything the approver should know.
- Click Submit request.
The form saves a draft while you type. If you close it, the request waits under the Drafts tab until you click Submit. You can share a draft with the team so someone else can finish it.
If the request costs more than the money your team has available, a yellow Insufficient funds warning appears. You can still submit it. The approver sees the same warning.
Your team's rules may ask for more
A budget manager can require every item to have a budget category, a product link or part number, a needed-by date, or a vendor from an approved list. If your request breaks one of those rules, the form tells you which item needs fixing.
Who approves it
Anyone whose role has Approve & place orders. The Owner has it, and so does the Manager role a new team starts with. Approvers get a notification when a request comes in.
You can't approve your own request while someone else on the team can. There are two exceptions:
- Your role has Approve your own orders.
- You're the only person on the team with approval rights, so there's nobody else to ask.
Small requests can skip approval entirely. If your team set Auto-approve requests up to in finance settings, anything at or under that amount goes straight to approved.
What happens next
The request moves through these steps, shown on its Timeline:
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Requested | Waiting for an approver |
| Approved | Cleared to buy, waiting for someone to place it |
| Ordered | Someone bought it and entered what was charged |
| Received | The parts arrived |
| Rejected | An approver turned it down, with an optional reason |
You get a notification when it's approved, rejected, ordered and received. While it's still Requested, you can edit or cancel it from the order page.
Already bought something?
If your role can both request and approve, the form has an Already bought box. Tick it to log a purchase that happened without a request. It skips approval and goes straight onto the budget at the amount charged.