Approval Workflows: Ending the Era of "Has Boss Signed It?"
This is the story of a single purchase requisition form at a mid-sized NGO in Lavington, and of how approval workflow software in Kenya could have saved it a very long journey. The form was born on a Monday morning. It needed three signatures to buy printer toner. It did not have an easy life.
The Journey of One Piece of Paper
Monday, 9am: Njoroge in admin fills in the form and walks it to his supervisor. She is in a meeting. He leaves it on her desk under a stapler for safety.
Monday, 4pm: The supervisor signs it, but Finance has closed for the day. The form spends the night in her drawer.
Tuesday: Finance reviews it, notes that the budget code is wrong, and sends it back. Njoroge corrects it with a pen, initials the correction, and starts the journey again.
Wednesday: The form reaches the Director's office. The Director is travelling. Her assistant says she will sign it on Friday.
Thursday: Someone asks, for the eleventh time that week, has boss signed it? Nobody knows. The form is last seen near the in-tray.
Friday: The Director signs it from a hotel in Kisumu after Njoroge photographs it and sends it on WhatsApp. The toner arrives the following Wednesday. By then, the printer has been out of ink for nine days.
Why Paper Approvals Are So Slow
The problem is not that anyone is lazy. Every person in that chain did their part. The problem is that paper can only be in one place at a time, and nobody can see where it is. Common symptoms include:
Requests lost in drawers, bags and in-trays
No record of who approved what, or when
Approvers travelling, on leave or stuck in Mombasa Road traffic
Small purchases needing the same process as big ones
Staff wasting hours walking forms around the building
What Approval Workflow Software Does
An automated approval workflow replaces the walking with routing. The request is filled in online, and the system sends it to the right person based on rules you set: who approves what, at what amount, in which department. Approvers get a notification, review the request on their phone or laptop, and approve or reject with a comment.
The benefits stack up quickly:
Everyone can see exactly where a request is stuck
Approvers can act from anywhere, including that hotel in Kisumu
Small requests can skip levels, big ones get extra checks
Reminders go out automatically when something sits too long
A complete audit trail is kept, which auditors and donors love
Designing a Sensible Workflow
Automation will faithfully copy whatever process you give it, including the silly parts. Before you set it up, take a hard look at your approval rules. Does buying toner really need the Director? Probably not. A good workflow matches the level of approval to the level of risk.
A few principles that help:
Set clear spending limits for each approval level
Name a backup approver for when someone is away
Require reasons for rejections, so requests can be fixed quickly
Keep forms short and ask only for what approvers actually check
Approval workflows are not only for purchases. Leave requests, expense claims, contracts, payment releases and new supplier sign-ups all follow the same pattern, and all benefit from the same treatment.
The Happy Ending
The NGO now handles requisitions through a simple online workflow. Njoroge submits a request in two minutes, his supervisor approves it from her phone between meetings, and anything under a set amount never troubles the Director at all. The phrase has boss signed it has disappeared from the office vocabulary.
If your office still has a requisition form wandering the corridors, talk to Philsoft about mapping your approvals. Bring the form along, if you can find it.