Every issue that comes up in your day-to-day work needs to be decided upon so that a given workflow can move forward. These can also be "little" things, for example, if you run out of raw materials, you need to get new supplies to continue working. There may be other types of decisions or approvals: the need for leave for an employee, travel costs, or even the adequacy of a document - all of these needs to be approved by leaders. However, one thing is common in all approvals and decisions: part of the company's business gets stuck and certain work processes stop until the decision is made or the approval is given or declined. That is why it is important that operational decisions and approvals are made as soon as possible and always by the competent manager to avoid increasing chaos. Approval in the classic sense is interpreted in the form of a signature or application form to be signed in each of the cases listed below.
In case approval rights and responsibilities are widely known within the organization, it is relatively easy to decide who approves what exactly. However, even with such a well-defined rights and responsibilities, the following problems may still occur:
More generally, employees in the organization, or some of them, do not know who they need to turn to for approval. Let's see through some examples what events usually occur when an approval is "stopped" in these cases, as these decision-making mechanisms or situations can negatively affect the operation of the company.
In this case, we have to wait until the approver is found, because there is no one to sign the approval of our claim. Thus, all workflows related to the claim will be stopped at the company until the competent person approves or rejects the claim. This condition, of course, blocks a part of the operation of the company and is therefore unsustainable, especially when a single approver is competent for a wide variety of needs.
If the approver is not available in person due to holiday or illness, the approvals related to him or her will not be granted. Accordingly, needs with a single approver will definitely stop and block some of the firm's activities.
For "classical" paper-based approved applications, each approver must sign the application or form in question. We can see that the above problems and cases can multiply fast. This type of approval can be particularly problematic when there is a time period (eg. summer vacation) when not even one approver is available to approve the application. In this way, many workflows can be stopped and operations become cumbersome.
In any case, accelerating the approval process has a positive impact on organizational efficiency. However, faster operation alone does not solve all the above problems. Accordingly, it is desirable to create an approval methodology and to use an approval management system that allows, inter alia:
A system with the knowledge described above is able to properly manage the approval process. At the same time, the extra function is important, as even though approval goes fast and hassle free, it is unavailing if subsequent tasks are not performed, or are not performed in a timely manner. For this reason, it is important that the approvals management system provides complete coverage of the approval process: claims, approvals, and related processes should all be managed by it.
All in all we may conclude that managing approval processes is of key importance when it comes to organizational efficiency as the lack of decisions made may create barriers to organizational work and operational excellence. In order to avoid at least some of the problems that may occur because of badly managed approval processes, a system that supports the whole process is desirable. Although there are many approval management systems available, only a few of them is able to comprehensively manage business processes, including approvals. Our suggestion is to choose a system that supports organizational efficiency, can be tailored to the company's exact needs and also provides online accessibility.
