What is Approval Management – Benefits and Hidden Dangers

In a company or organization, document approvals are nowadays usually done electronically. Back in the day when paper media was what a lot of people depended on, a new solution to cater to this unique problem was needed.

The answer was to ultimately come up with a system that would allow approvals to be carried out in a timely manner while still maintaining the integrity of the orders. That came to be what is known as an approval management system. To get a better picture of this topic, we’re going to answer questions like what is approval management, what it’s all about among a few other details.

Approval Management Software

For a person new to how businesses and organizations work, ‘what is approval management’ may be a question worth answering. For those who’ve been around, they know this is a must-have a piece of the technological puzzle that runs throughout the company.

In simple terms, approval management refers to the workflows involved in getting a document, order or invoice authenticated and approved before it can be carried out by the concerned part of the firm responsible for it. Every action within an organization ultimately impacts its well-being and as such, care and responsibility should be taken to ensure whatever orders are made are well documented and reach their targets in a timely manner.

The disadvantages of having an ineffective Approval Management System

Given the brief description of what the process entails above, it is quite evident that this is quite a sensitive aspect of any business. Below we’re going to highlight some of the demerits that your firm may face in the wake of having an ineffective approval management process and system:

1. Ineffective time spending

A major problem of the old way of getting approvals within organizations is that it led to a lot of time wastage. This is because some documents needing multiple approvals would have to be circulated to the parties responsible one by one and in the end, this would make the process long and late to implement.

2. Lack of flexibility

I.e. some outdated systems don’t allow for mobile access to their systems. This is a must-have feature in today’s world since a lot of people in varying geographic locations can work on the same project within a company.

3. Information loss

Because of ineffective approval systems in place, some of the information pertaining to the approval process may get lost. This results in making decisions that don’t have all the necessary details taken into account, which can be definitely costly for companies.

What merits having a proper Approval Management System brings to your company?

1. Automated approval workflows

Modern approval management system is expected to enable non-technical users to design web forms and workflows in a visual editor and then modify approval workflows easily as needed.

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2. Offers mobile access

This way, any concerned parties in the approval process can be contacted and perform the necessary actions as required, when they’re needed anytime, anywhere.

3. Efficient approval workflow tracking

This kind of approval management system allows for all involved parties to effectively track the progress of their requests. Each task has a unique identifier and as such, you can identify it from the rest of the requests pending approval and you can check on what persons have yet to respond to your request and also gain an insight into the amount of time it will take.

It also lets the company know exactly all the players involved in a request and the reasons why it was rejected or approved.

4. Process transparency

This system helps to keep in check the authenticity of orders since it records all the steps that were taken before it was approved and ultimately executed. Easy document tracking provided my an approval management software adds even more transparency to processes.

5. Ad-hoc approvals

The approval management software allows for involved personnel to appoint replacements or alternative personnel to take over the approval process. This comes in particularly handy when said personnel are on leave or vacation and can’t execute the duties.

6. Convenience

These systems have a friendly user interface to promote simplicity and efficiency.

In Conclusion

This piece aimed at answering what is approval management, the steps involved in it, how it improves your company effectivity and makes the business closer to success. More details can be found from vendor sites on this kind of software.

Try the risk-free trial version of CMW Tracker — a cloud-based workflow automation software widely used for streamlining approval workflows and other administrative processes.

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Helena Haidu is an Online Marketing Manager at CMWlab. and a passionate advocate for empowering executive managers onward to workflow automation and running their businesses efficiently.