If you sell to manufacturers, distributors, corporate offices, educational
institutions, healthcare organizations, contractors, or other enterprise buyers,
your customer may not be allowed to spend company money without internal approval.
That is exactly the problem the Adobe Commerce B2B Purchase Order system is designed
to solve.

Terminology note:
People commonly search for this feature as “Magento B2B Purchase Orders.”
Technically, the advanced company-account and approval-rule functionality discussed
in this guide belongs to Adobe Commerce B2B, rather than the core
Magento Open Source product.
01

Control Spending

Apply approval requirements when purchasing values cross company-defined limits.

02

Route Approvals

Send qualifying purchase orders to managers, finance teams, or defined roles.

03

Keep Visibility

Buyers and approvers can track purchase orders and pending approval activity.

Inside This Guide
01. What is a B2B Purchase Order?
02. Complete Approval Workflow
03. Approval Rule Types
04. Multiple Approvers
05. Roles & Permissions
06. Real-World Example
07. Payment Workflows
08. Pricing & Inventory
09. Best Practices
10. FAQs

What Is a Purchase Order in Magento B2B?

In Adobe Commerce B2B, a Purchase Order or PO is more than a traditional payment
reference number. When Purchase Orders are enabled for a company, purchases made by
company users can enter a controlled approval workflow before becoming a standard
ecommerce order.

Imagine an employee responsible for purchasing warehouse supplies. The employee may
be authorized to buy routine materials worth $300 without involving anyone else.
However, a $7,500 equipment purchase might require the department manager and finance
team to approve it. A $30,000 purchase might additionally require a company
administrator or another senior role.

Instead of handling those decisions through email chains, spreadsheets, phone calls,
or external approval documents, the ecommerce store can become part of the company’s
procurement process.

When the Purchase Order feature is active, users with the appropriate company
permissions can create and manage purchase orders. The exact actions available to
each person depend on their company role and the permissions assigned to that role.

The Magento B2B Purchase-Order Workflow, Step by Step

The easiest way to understand the system is to follow a purchase from the buyer’s
cart to the final order. The workflow can vary depending on approval rules, user roles,
and payment method, but the core logic looks like this:

B2B Purchase-Order Approval Flow
1
Buyer Creates PO
Products and checkout details are submitted.
→
2
Rules Evaluated
Commerce checks applicable approval conditions.
→
3
Approvers Review
Required managers or roles approve the PO.
→
4
Order Proceeds
The purchase moves toward final order creation.

Step 1: The Buyer Creates the Purchase Order

A company user signs in, builds the cart, provides the required checkout information,
and submits the purchase. Because Purchase Orders are enabled for the company account,
the transaction enters the PO process.

Step 2: Adobe Commerce Evaluates Approval Rules

The platform evaluates approval rules that apply to the buyer’s company role.
If no manual approval is required, the purchase can proceed without waiting for a
manager. If one or more rules apply, the PO moves into an approval state.

Step 3: Required Approvers Review the Request

Designated approvers can find orders waiting for their action under
Requires My Approval. They can inspect the purchase details and
approve or reject eligible requests. Adobe Commerce also supports bulk approval and
rejection for qualifying purchase orders, which can help purchasing managers process
larger approval queues.

Step 4: All Necessary Approvals Are Collected

A PO does not simply stop after the first approval when multiple rules apply. If
several rules identify different required approvers, the unique required approvers
need to approve the purchase before it can continue.

Step 5: The Purchase Proceeds to Order Completion

Once the necessary approvals are satisfied, the transaction can proceed toward a
standard order. The final payment step differs depending on whether an online or
offline payment method is being used.

What Can Trigger a Purchase-Order Approval?

Adobe Commerce gives B2B organizations several practical ways to decide when approval
should be required. Instead of forcing every purchase through the same workflow,
businesses can create rules around the characteristics that matter most to their
procurement policy.

Rule Type 01

Order Total

Require approval when the purchase-order total crosses a configured financial
threshold. The order-total condition includes tax.

Example:
PO total ≥ $5,000 → Finance approval required.
Rule Type 02

Shipping Cost

Trigger approval when freight or shipping cost becomes unusually high.
This is useful for industrial, oversized, or expedited orders.

Example:
Shipping cost > $750 → Operations approval required.
Rule Type 03

Number of SKUs

Approval can depend on the number of distinct SKUs in the PO rather than
simply the total quantity of individual units.

Example:
Unique SKUs > 40 → Purchasing manager approval required.

Each of these rule types supports comparison logic such as more than, less than,
more than or equal to, and less than or equal to. This gives companies enough
flexibility to create tiered approval policies instead of a single fixed limit.

SKU Count vs Product Quantity
If a buyer orders 50 units of Product A and 30 units of Product B, that order contains
80 physical units but only two distinct SKUs. The SKU approval rule
evaluates distinct item types rather than total unit quantity.

How Multiple Approval Rules Work Together

This is where Magento B2B approval workflows become especially valuable for enterprise
purchasing. A single purchase can satisfy several approval conditions at the same time.
When that happens, Adobe Commerce can require approval from all unique approvers
produced by the matching rules.

For example, imagine a business with four internal spending levels:

Example Corporate Spending Policy

Under $500
No additional approval
$500 – $4,999
Department Manager
$5,000 – $19,999
Manager + Finance
$20,000+
Manager + Finance + Senior Approval

Suppose a warehouse buyer submits a $12,000 equipment request. One rule could require
department-manager approval for purchases above $500, while another could require
finance approval for purchases above $5,000. Because both rules apply, the PO may
require both unique approvals before it moves forward.

This design lets merchants reproduce real procurement governance without creating a
completely separate checkout process for every customer.

Company Roles Are the Foundation of the Workflow

Approval rules work best when the company’s organizational structure has already been
designed correctly. Adobe Commerce B2B supports company users, teams, roles, and
permissions so organizations can mirror real purchasing responsibilities inside the
storefront.

A company might create roles such as:

The permission system controls who can view their own purchase orders, see subordinate
purchase orders, view company-wide POs, access approval rules, or approve purchases.
There is also an Auto-approve POs created within this role permission
that can be useful when certain trusted roles should have greater purchasing autonomy.

Company administrators have elevated authority and can bypass the normal approval
rules when they create orders. That is why companies should assign administrator-level
access carefully rather than using it as a convenient general purchasing role.

A Real-World Magento B2B Approval Workflow

Consider an industrial distributor selling replacement parts, tools, safety products,
and machinery to large manufacturing customers.

One customer has 45 employees using the same company account across purchasing,
maintenance, warehouse operations, finance, and management. The customer does not want
every employee to have unlimited buying authority, but it also does not want managers
wasting time manually approving every $40 box of routine supplies.

The company could configure a policy like this:

Now imagine the maintenance buyer creates an $8,200 order containing 18 SKUs.
The shipping fee is only $250. The order-total rules are triggered, but the shipping
and SKU rules are not. The system can therefore direct the PO only to the relevant
manager and finance approvers instead of involving every possible reviewer.

This conditional logic is the key advantage: approval becomes proportional to the
financial or operational risk of the purchase.

Online vs Offline Payment Workflows

Payment method affects how the final stages of a Purchase Order workflow behave.
This distinction matters because keeping online payment credentials waiting inside a
long approval process would introduce unnecessary security concerns.

Offline Payment Path

Buyer creates the Purchase Order
Offline payment information is provided
Applicable approval rules run
Approvers approve the PO
Purchase proceeds to order completion

Online Payment Path

Buyer creates the Purchase Order
Applicable approval rules run
Required approvers approve the PO
Buyer provides online payment details
PO is converted into the final order

Adobe’s current Purchase Order approval documentation lists supported default offline
payment methods and identifies PayPal Express and Braintree among supported online
payment options for this workflow. Merchants should always validate the exact payment
combination used by their store before implementing a production approval process.

What Happens to Prices and Inventory While Approval Is Pending?

B2B approvals can take hours or even days, so merchants need to understand what happens
between PO creation and final order placement.

Purchase Orders Capture a Pricing Snapshot

When the PO is created, Adobe Commerce captures a snapshot of relevant item prices,
discounts, and shipping prices. If an item’s catalog price changes while the PO is
waiting for approval, the purchase order can retain the price captured when the PO was
originally created.

This is valuable in B2B purchasing because a buyer may obtain approval based on a
particular quoted purchase value. Unexpectedly changing that value halfway through a
corporate approval chain could create confusion or require the customer to restart
internal authorization.

Inventory Still Matters

A pricing snapshot does not mean inventory is permanently reserved for every pending
purchase order. According to Adobe’s documented workflow, the final order cannot be
placed if one or more required products have become disabled or are out of stock.

Implementation Tip
If your business regularly has long approval cycles for limited-stock products,
define a clear inventory policy and test real-world scenarios before launch.
B2B buyers need to know what happens when an item is unavailable after approval.

How Buyers and Approvers Track Purchase Orders

A good approval system needs visibility. Adobe Commerce provides Purchase Order views
that help users understand what they created, what their company is purchasing, and
which requests are waiting for their action.

A

My Purchase Orders

Shows purchase orders created by the logged-in company user.

B

Company Purchase Orders

Provides visibility into eligible subordinate purchases based on hierarchy and permissions.

C

Requires My Approval

Shows POs currently waiting for action from the logged-in approver.

This reduces the need for buyers to repeatedly email managers asking whether a purchase
has been reviewed. It also gives approvers a centralized queue for the transactions that
actually require their attention.

Best Practices for Designing a Magento B2B Approval Workflow

The technical ability to create many rules does not mean you should create a complicated
workflow. The best approval process protects company spending without turning ordinary
purchases into administrative work.

Design roles first.
Build company users, reporting structure, roles, and permissions before creating
approval rules.
Keep low-risk purchases simple.
Avoid forcing managers to approve routine low-value transactions unless policy
genuinely requires it.
Use meaningful rule names.
“Finance Approval – Orders Over $5,000” is much easier to manage than “Rule 7.”
Test overlapping rules.
Verify what happens when order total, shipping cost, and SKU rules trigger together.
Test threshold boundaries.
If the rule starts at $5,000, test $4,999, $5,000, and $5,001 before launch.
Review permissions regularly.
Update approval access when employees change departments, responsibilities, or roles.

Another important consideration is the number of people assigned to approving roles.
Adobe documents specific behavior when the PO creator is also part of an approver role.
That makes realistic testing with actual company-role structures important before
deploying workflows to customers.

Why Purchase-Order Approvals Matter for B2B Ecommerce

The biggest benefit is not simply “more control.” It is the ability to bring corporate
procurement policy into the same digital experience where the purchase is created.

Without integrated approvals, an employee might build a cart, export information,
email a manager, wait for permission, return to the store, rebuild the cart, and then
complete checkout. Every manual handoff creates another opportunity for delay,
abandoned purchases, pricing confusion, or incorrect products.

A properly configured Adobe Commerce B2B workflow can reduce those handoffs while
preserving financial governance. Buyers get a familiar ecommerce interface, managers
get controlled approval responsibilities, and merchants can offer an experience that
better matches how enterprise customers actually purchase.

For wholesalers and distributors competing for large business accounts, this can be
more valuable than adding another visual storefront feature. Enterprise buyers often
care as much about procurement efficiency, account permissions, repeat purchasing,
and spending control as they do about the appearance of the product page.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Magento B2B Purchase Order approval available in Magento Open Source?

The advanced company-account Purchase Order approval functionality covered here is
part of Adobe Commerce B2B. “Magento B2B” remains a commonly used search term, but
merchants should distinguish Adobe Commerce B2B capabilities from Magento Open Source.

Can a purchase order require more than one approver?

Yes. If multiple applicable approval rules identify different required approvers,
all unique required approvers can need to approve the PO before it proceeds.

Can Magento trigger approval based on shipping cost?

Yes. Shipping Cost is one of the available Purchase Order approval rule types,
making it possible to review unusually expensive freight before completion.

Can approval depend on how many products are in the order?

Adobe Commerce supports approval based on the number of unique SKUs. This evaluates
distinct SKUs rather than the total number of physical units ordered.

Do online payments happen before or after approval?

For supported online payment workflows, online payment information is entered after
the Purchase Order receives the required approvals. Offline payment details can be
entered when the PO is created.

Can company administrators bypass approval rules?

Company administrators have elevated purchasing authority and Adobe documents that
they can create orders automatically without going through the normal approval rules.

Final Thoughts

Magento B2B Purchase Order approval workflows are not simply an approve-or-reject
button added to checkout. In Adobe Commerce B2B, they form a purchasing-control layer
that connects company structure, roles, permissions, order value, shipping cost,
product complexity, approvers, payment methods, and final order creation.

The most successful implementations usually start with the customer’s real procurement
policy rather than the software configuration screen. First determine who can buy,
which transactions represent meaningful financial risk, which people genuinely need
to approve those transactions, and where unnecessary approval would create friction.
Then translate those requirements into company roles and approval rules.

Done properly, the result is a B2B buying experience that feels simple to employees
while still giving managers and finance teams the control they need.

Planning a Magento B2B Workflow?

A strong Adobe Commerce B2B implementation should match your customer’s real
purchasing hierarchy, approval limits, payment flow, and account permissions—not
force every buyer through the same checkout process.

Discuss Your B2B Requirements →