Approva
Route purchase requests through amount-based approvals and issue numbered POs before the money is spent.
The problem it solves
Someone in your team wants to buy something. Right now that "approval" is a Slack message and a forwarded email, and the first time finance hears about it is when the invoice arrives. Small and mid-sized organisations that have outgrown "email the manager" still lack a repeatable requisition-to-approval-to-purchase-order flow with an audit trail, without buying and configuring a full ERP.
- No threshold-based rule for who must approve a purchase
- No append-only trail of who approved what, when, and why
- Nothing to turn an approved request into a numbered purchase order
What you get
Amount-based approval routing
Requests route to one, two, or three approvers based on thresholds you set, and nothing becomes a PO until fully approved.
Full approval audit trail
Every request carries an append-only activity log and approval trail, exportable to CSV or JSON at any time.
Numbered PO generation
One click on a fully approved request generates a sequential, unique PO number and a printable purchase order.
Integer-cent money math
Totals are kept in integer cents throughout, with fractional quantities supported and correctly rounded.
Two-minute self-hosted install
Installs through a web form on plain PHP 8 and MySQL or SQLite, with no Composer, no Node, and no cron jobs.
Pricing — one-time, yours forever
Screenshots
Honest limitations
- Not accounting/ERP software; no general-ledger posting, no journal entries
- No payment processing — issues POs only; never pays vendors
- No 3-way matching, goods receipt, inventory, or budget/encumbrance tracking
- No punchout catalogs or supplier-portal integration
- Single-tenant: one organisation per installation
- Email notifications are not built in (v1 is an in-app workflow tool); approvers check their queue in the dashboard
Two-minute web installer on PHP 8.1+ with MySQL or SQLite; a Dockerfile is also included for containerised deployments.
Frequently asked questions
How do the approval thresholds work?
You set amounts in your own currency. A request at or above the first threshold needs a second approver; at or above the second, a third. Below the first threshold, one approver is enough, and an approver can never approve their own request.
Is it multi-user? What are the roles?
Yes — three roles: requester, approver, and admin (who can also act as an approver and manages vendors, cost centers, settings, and PO generation).
Does it integrate with QuickBooks, Xero, or SAP?
Not directly. Approva exports the register as CSV/JSON for you to import or reconcile in your accounting system; it does not post to a general ledger.
Does it pay vendors?
No, deliberately. Approva approves purchase requests and issues purchase orders. It does not process payments or connect to your bank or AP system — paying the supplier happens in your accounting tool after you send the PO.
Will it run on my shared host?
Yes. Plain PHP 8 with MySQL (or SQLite for zero-config), no Composer, no Node, no cron jobs. It installs in about two minutes through a web form.