Purchase Order Processing

Time to complete: 20 minutesDifficulty: IntermediatePrerequisites: Procurement system access, Email or Slack connectionYou’ll build: An agent that auto-approves POs based on thresholds and routes high-value orders for review

Why Automate This?

The Problem: Purchase order approvals create bottlenecks. Simple

500 orders wait in the same queue as

50,000 purchases. Managers waste time approving routine orders while critical purchases get delayed. Meanwhile, procurement teams manually check vendor status and budget availability for every single PO. The Solution: A Duvo agent that intelligently processes purchase orders based on configurable thresholds—auto-approving routine orders instantly while routing high-value purchases through appropriate approval chains. Expected Results:

Auto-approve 70-80% of routine POs instantly
Reduce approval cycle from 2-3 days to under 4 hours
Eliminate manual vendor validation checks
Ensure budget compliance before approval
Complete audit trail for compliance

What You’ll Build

By the end of this tutorial, you’ll have an agent that:

Monitors your procurement system for new purchase orders
Validates vendor status against your approved vendor list
Checks available budget before processing
Auto-approves orders under your threshold limits
Routes high-value orders to appropriate approvers
Sends confirmations and updates status automatically

Before You Start

Make sure you have these ready:

Procurement system - You’ll need logins with read/write access. Set up logins

Email or Slack connection - For notifications and approvals. Add a connection

Budget system access (optional) - For automatic budget validation

Approved vendor list - Either in your procurement system or as a Files file

Create Your Agent

Click ”+ Create Agent” from your dashboard
Select “Use Agent Builder” (recommended for this tutorial)

Describe Your Workflow

Paste this prompt into the Agent Builder:

Monitor our procurement system for new purchase orders with status "Pending Approval".

For each new PO:
1. Extract PO number, requestor name, vendor, total amount, line items, and department
2. Check if the vendor is on our approved vendor list
3. If vendor is not approved, flag for procurement team review and stop processing

For approved vendors, apply these approval rules:
- Orders under $1,000: Auto-approve immediately
- Orders $1,000 - $5,000: Check if requestor has department manager approval, then process
- Orders over $5,000: Route to finance director for review with budget impact analysis

After approval:
1. Update PO status to "Approved"
2. Send confirmation email to requestor with expected delivery date
3. If amount exceeds $10,000, also notify the VP of Operations

Error handling:
- If vendor portal is unavailable, queue the order and retry in 1 hour
- If budget is exceeded, notify finance team and hold the order
- If no approval response in 48 hours, escalate to next level

Click “Generate” to create the agent AOP.

Review Generated AOP

Duvo will generate structured AOP. Review to ensure:

Threshold amounts match your organization’s approval matrix
Escalation paths are correct for your org structure
All system names are correctly identified

Edit the AOP directly to adjust any thresholds or routing rules.

Add Your Approved Vendor List

If your vendor list isn’t in your procurement system, upload it to Files:

Go to Agent Settings > Files
Upload your approved vendor list (CSV, Excel, or PDF)
The agent will reference this when validating vendors

Configure Connections

Click “Connections” and connect:

Procurement system - Add logins for your PO platform
Email - For sending approvals and confirmations
Slack (optional) - For real-time notifications to approvers

Test Your Agent

Run a test with sample purchase orders:

Click “Run Agent”
Process a few test POs at different amounts ( $500,$ 3,000, $8,000)
Verify each follows the correct approval path

What to check:

Did low-value orders auto-approve correctly?
Did high-value orders route to the right approver?
Did vendor validation work?
Did confirmations send to requestors?

Enable Continuous Monitoring

Set the agent to run continuously or on a schedule:

Go to Agent Settings > Schedule
Choose “Continuous” for real-time processing, or
Choose “Every hour” for batch processing
Save settings

Expected Results

When your agent runs successfully, you should see: In your procurement system:

Auto-approved POs show “Approved” status instantly
High-value POs show “Pending [Approver Name] Approval”
Rejected vendors flagged for review

In approver inboxes:

Clear approval requests with PO details
Budget impact information for large orders
One-click approve/reject options

In requestor inboxes:

Instant confirmation for auto-approved orders
Status updates when approvals are pending
Expected delivery dates

In Duvo:

Complete audit trail of all decisions
Approval chain documentation
Processing time metrics

Troubleshooting

Orders not being detected

Check status filter: Verify “Pending Approval” matches your system’s exact status name
Check permissions: Ensure logins can view all departments’ POs
Check polling interval: If using scheduled runs, orders may be waiting for next cycle

Vendor validation failing

List format: Ensure vendor names match exactly (watch for “Inc.” vs “Inc” issues)
List location: Verify Files file is attached to this agent
Update frequency: Make sure your vendor list is current

Wrong approval routing

Threshold values: Double-check dollar amounts in AOP
Org structure: Verify approver names/emails are correct
Department mapping: Ensure requestors are mapped to correct departments

Budget check errors

System connection: Verify budget system logins
Account codes: Ensure PO account codes match budget categories
Timing: Budget data may be delayed—add buffer for recent transactions

Notifications not sending

Email connection: Re-authorize if needed
Recipient addresses: Verify approver emails are valid
Spam filters: Check if notifications are being blocked

Take It Further

Once your basic agent is working, consider these enhancements:

Add budget pre-check

Before processing any PO, check the department's remaining budget.
If the PO would exceed available budget by more than 10%, hold for finance review.
Include budget utilization percentage in the approval request.

Implement rush order handling

If the PO is marked as "Rush" or "Urgent":
- Skip the 48-hour escalation wait time
- Send immediate Slack notification to approver
- If no response in 4 hours, auto-escalate to next level

Add vendor performance scoring

Before auto-approving, check the vendor's performance score in our system.
If score is below 3.5/5, flag for procurement review regardless of amount.
Include vendor rating in all approval requests.

Create spending reports

At end of each week, generate a summary of:
- Total POs processed
- Auto-approved vs manually approved ratio
- Average approval time
- Top vendors by spend
Send report to procurement manager.

Personalize with Agent Memory

Different users can set their own approval thresholds. Learn about Agent Memory

Department Manager: “Auto-approve all purchase orders under $5,000 from approved vendors. Flag anything over$ 5,000 for my review.”
Director: “Auto-approve all purchase orders under $10,000. For orders between$ 10,000- $25,000, check if they're budgeted before requesting approval. Anything over$ 25,000 requires VP sign-off.”

Human-in-the-Loop

Configure approval workflows for high-value orders

Agent Memory

Set personal approval thresholds per user

Files

Upload approved vendor lists and policies

My Logins

Securely store procurement system access

​Why Automate This?

​What You’ll Build

​Before You Start

​Expected Results

​Troubleshooting

​Take It Further

​Related Resources

Human-in-the-Loop

Agent Memory

Files

My Logins

Why Automate This?

What You’ll Build

Before You Start

Expected Results

Troubleshooting

Take It Further

Related Resources