Reviewing Budget and Purchase Requests – Suitable

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Access Level: Student Org Admin or Org Admin

This article is intended for users with Student Org Admin or Org Admin access in Suitable. If you don’t have one of these roles, some of the steps outlined below may not be available in your account.

Ineligible Roles: Member, Leader, or Manager

Keep in mind...

Budget and purchase requests put each line item next to the fund's balances, so you can make funding decisions with the numbers in front of you instead of in a separate spreadsheet.

Note: Being an Org Admin is not enough to approve a request. The Approve, Send back, Deny request, and Edit responses buttons appear only for members of the Admin Group assigned to that step. Your Client Success Team decides which Admin Group reviews each step. If you do not see these buttons, add yourself to the assigned group. Learn how in Managing Admin Groups.

Note: Students start budget and purchase requests from their organization's Financials tab with Financial Request +. These requests track funds in Suitable. They do not move real money.

This article covers what is different about finance requests.

How to review a budget or purchase request:

Navigate to Requests on the left sidebar. On the My Requests tab, open the budget or purchase request that shows Needs Your Action.
Scroll down the request. At an approval step, every form the student completed in the earlier step appears on the page, one after another.

Under Account Balances, select View Fund Details → to check the fund before you decide. The fund opens in a new browser tab, so you keep your place in the request. View Fund Details → appears for Org Admins, Student Org Admins, and the Fund Managers assigned to the step. Fund Managers see a read-only view of the fund.
Review the Request Amount summary. It shows the Total Line Items and the Total Amount.
Review each line item card. Each card shows the item's name, description, and amount.

Select Approve, Send back, or Deny request, add an optional comment, and select Save.

Note: Line items are read-only until you select Edit responses. For a small fix, such as a typo in a description, use Edit responses. For bigger fixes, for example if many of the amounts need to change, send the request back so the student can update it.

Remember: Students cannot request more than either the fund holds or more than their budget.

How balances change:

You can check an organization's balances on its Financials tab. Each fund account shows five balances:

Available Balance
Current Balance
Pending Expenses
Approved Expenses
Actual Expenses

A budget request typically raises the Available Balance when the student submits it.

When you approve the budget request, the Current Balance typically rises by the same amount.

Purchase requests typically move the Pending Expenses, Approved Expenses, and Actual Expenses balances as the request moves through its steps.

Important: When each balance changes depends on how your Client Success Team set up the workflow. If the balances do not change as you expect, contact your Client Success Team.

Note: Canceling a request rolls back any pending expenses it created. Expenses that have already been posted are not rolled back. Learn more in Canceling a Workflow Request.

How to check which workflows a fund accepts:

Navigate to Finance on the left sidebar.
Open the menu on the fund's row and select Account settings.
Review Select Workflows(s) . Students see only these workflows when they select Financial Request + for this fund.
Make sure Enable Requests is checked, so students can submit requests against this fund.

Select Save to keep any changes, or Cancel to close without saving.

Get more from Suitable

Connect more student organizations to a fund so they can submit finance requests against it. Learn how in Adding an Organization's Spend Account to a Fund, or start with the Starter Guide to Financial Workflows.

If you have additional questions, chat with us below or send us an email at support@suitable.co.