Human Resources and Purchasing share job and position information if they are installed together. You should consider your requirements from both perspectives before deciding on an approval/security structure.

Jobs and Positions
Human Resources uses jobs to classify categories of personnel in your organization, and associates information like the exempt/non–exempt code and EEO code with individual jobs.

• Examples of a typical job include Vice President, Buyer, and Manager. Positions represent specific functions within these job categories.
• Examples of typical positions associated with the Vice President job include Vice President of Manufacturing, Vice President of Engineering, and Vice President of Sales.
• Human Resources uses position hierarchies to define management line reporting and control access to employee information.
• Review your Personnel department’s system requirements before you decide how you want to use positions, jobs, and position hierarchies in Purchasing

Approval Hierarchies
Approval hierarchies let you automatically route documents for approval. There are two kinds of approval hierarchies: position
hierarchy and employee/supervisor relationships.
If you choose to use employee/supervisor relationships, you define your approval routing structures as you enter employees using the Enter Person window. In this case, Purchasing does not require that you set up positions.

If you choose to use position hierarchies, you must set up both jobs and positions. While positions and position hierarchies require more initial effort to set up, they are easy to maintain and allow you to define approval routing structures that remain stable regardless of how frequently individual employees leave your organization or relocate within it.