Approval exists because the person who knows what to order is often not the person allowed to commit the money. In procurement-heavy customers this is enforced by their own system, which is what punchout is for. In smaller customers it has to be enforced by yours, which means the storefront needs a submitted-but-not-approved state and a way to notify the right person.
The details are where implementations diverge. Does the approver edit the order or only accept and reject it? Does the threshold apply per line or per order? What happens to pricing and stock while an order waits, sometimes for days? A platform that supports approvals in the abstract may still not support your rule.
Shopify B2B and BigCommerce B2B Edition both have approval features, with different limits on the rules you can express. Where the rule is unusual, the alternatives are a middleware step before the order reaches the ERP, or accepting the order and letting the ERP hold it.
Why it decides a platform
Approval is often the reason a customer’s buyers cannot use the site at all. It is also easy to under-specify, because the requirement lives inside the customer’s business rather than yours.
Also called: approval workflow, order approval workflow, purchase approval, approval routing, spending limit approval.
Last updated 2026-08-20.