Automating approvals without losing the audit trail

Requisitions, leave, expense claims, price overrides: every organisation runs on approvals, and most run them through email, chat and paper. Automating them is usually the first automation project a business takes on — and it sets the pattern for everything after.

Separate the rule from the routing

Who must approve what is a business rule ("purchases over a threshold need two signatures"). Who is available to approve it today is routing ("the finance manager is on leave"). Keep them apart in the system so the rule stays stable while routing handles delegation, escalation and reminders.

Record decisions, not just outcomes

An audit trail that says "approved" is not enough. Record who decided, when, what they saw at the time, and any comment. If the request changed after an approval, the approval should be invalidated — silently carrying an old approval onto new figures is how automation loses trust.

Design for the exception path

Rejections need a reason and a way back to the requester. Urgent cases need an escalation that is visible, not a side channel. Timeouts need reminders and, eventually, a defined fallback. The happy path is a small part of the work.

Measure what changed

After go-live, the useful questions are simple: how long do requests wait at each step, and where do they stall? A workflow system that answers those questions pays for itself in the next process it is applied to.