Purchasing controls and approval limits
For team leads, budget holders, office administrators and anyone who requests or approves purchases, including new managers who've just been given an approval limit. No prerequisites. You'll read an approval matrix, work out the value that sets the approval level, keep requesting, approving and supplier set-up in different hands, put approval before commitment, and spot purchases that must be escalated whatever their value. It complements 'Approval controls and expense documentation' and 'Accounts payable controls: three-way match, tolerances and segregation of duties'. It draws on the US GAO Green Book and HM Treasury's Managing Public Money (UK), adapted for companies. This course is not legal or accounting advice and doesn't qualify you to give it; your company's purchasing policy and approval matrix take priority.
- Level
- Beginner
- Length
- About 84 minutes
- Contents
- 5 lessons · final exam
- Status
- Published · updated 10 Oct 2026
Skills you'll practise
- Read an approval matrix to find who must approve a purchase by type and value
- Calculate the value that sets the approval level, over the whole life of the contract
- Identify incompatible duties and conflicts of interest in a purchase
- Choose preventive controls that put approval before commitment, and handle after-the-fact requests
- Recognise purchases that need escalation whatever their value, and approval rights that need review
Course outline
- 1.Reading an approval matrixLesson · 13 min
- 2.Calculating the value that sets the approval levelLesson · 15 min
- 3.Identifying incompatible duties and conflicts of interestLesson · 15 min
- 4.Choosing preventive controls that put approval before commitmentLesson · 15 min
- 5.Escalating unusual purchases and reviewing approval rightsLesson · 14 min
- 6.Purchasing controls and approval limits: knowledge checkKnowledge check · 13 questions
- 7.Purchasing controls and approval limits: practical exerciseKnowledge check · 1 question
- 8.Final exam10 questions · passing it completes the course, so people who already know the material can test out
Sources it draws on
The lessons and questions are written from these references, so learners can go back to the original.
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