The Approval Ladder
When a change goes beyond the operator's ceiling, the phone refuses it and offers to send a request to a manager, who decides it on their own phone. This is the approval ladder. It applies to a markdown beyond a line's ceiling, a whole-sale discount beyond the sale ceiling, an open price beyond its window, and a sale whose total give-away crosses the store's limit.
How an approval works online
When the operator asks for more than their record allows, the phone does not simply stop. It names the limit that was reached and offers to escalate. When the operator sends the request, it goes to a manager's own phone, where the manager approves or denies it.
While the request is being decided, the line keeps its within-ceiling price, so the sale is never left without a figure. After the manager answers, one of these happens:
- Approved. The change applies, and the line re-prices to the approved amount.
- Denied. The line keeps its within-ceiling price, and the operator is told the request was refused.
- Expired. The request was not answered in time. The line keeps its within-ceiling price, and the operator is told it lapsed.
Denial and expiry are not the same thing, and the phone shows them differently on purpose. A denied request was answered "no"; an expired one was never answered. In both cases the operator can sell at the within-ceiling price or ask again.
A manager has a fixed few minutes to answer before a request lapses. This countdown is built in, and there is no store setting that changes it.
What an approval is bound to
An approval authorizes one give-away, once. It does not raise the operator's ceiling, and it cannot be moved to another line or another sale.
- It is tied to the basket it was raised for. When the basket changes, for example the quantity on a line, the approval must be confirmed again at the new amounts.
- It belongs to the sale, the operator, and the store it was raised from. An approval from one sale cannot be used on the next customer's basket, and an approval that arrives after its sale has ended applies nothing and says so.
- The same approval cannot be used twice. A second use is refused, and the phone names the sale that already used it.
Because each approval is this tightly bound, the operator asks for exactly the give-away they need, when they need it.
The whole-sale total, and the stack approval
Separately from every individual ceiling, there is a limit on the total given away on one sale. Every line can pass its own check and the sale still add up to more than you intend, and this limit is what catches that.
The total is worked out continuously and shown on the discounts screen, but it is the completion of the sale that it blocks, not the working-out. When the total crosses the store's limit, the sale needs a separate stack approval, again from a manager's own phone.
Two things about this total are worth knowing:
- An already-approved line does not count again. When a manager has approved a markdown on a line, that line is not counted a second time toward the store's total. Nobody is asked for the same authority twice.
- You cannot ask for a stack approval before it is needed. A request raised while the total is still within the store's limit is refused, because there is nothing yet to approve.
The limits a manager cannot clear
This is the rule to train on. Some limits a manager can approve past. Others can only be respected, and asking a manager to clear them leaves both the operator and the manager stuck.
| The limit | Who sets it | What to do instead |
|---|---|---|
| The item's own maximum discount | You do, on the item in the back office | Lower the discount or take it off. An approval cannot override this one. |
| Selling below what the store paid | Your selling settings, when you switch the check on | Raise the price, or remove the discount. There is no approval for this on the phone; if a decision is needed, take the sale to a register. |
| The staff monthly allowance | You do, store-wide | Nothing at the till. The staff discount simply stops once the allowance is reached, and the rest of the basket stays at full price. No refusal is raised. |
| A gift-card top-up amount | The card's own rules | Fix the card or the amount. This path has no window and no approval behind it. |
There is an opposite mistake that is just as costly. "The change was approved once and still refused, so it must be the item" is not reliable. An approved line markdown can push the whole sale past the store's total, and there the remedy is a further approval, a stack one, not a smaller discount. Always read what the refusal points at: the operator's own ceiling, the item, or the sale's total.