Approval Process | Manage Approvals Better

Approval Process Overview

If your organization is like most, your  approval process forces employees and supervisors to spend a lot of time tracking down paperwork, sharing Word or Excel documents, sending countless emails, making numerous phone calls, and dealing with a lot of miscommunication. So don’t worry, you’re not alone.

Usually, departments and business units are left on their own to come up with their approval processes. This is for a few reasons:

1. Approval processes are unique to each department.

2. IT departments are overwhelmed.

3. A lack of departmental technical expertise.

4. A lack of knowledge about potential software solutions.

We’ll cover ways that you can begin automating approvals efficiently and proactively.

Requests and Approvals Keep Coming!

Your department handles a lot of internal requests and approvals every day. Depending on your function, you may deal with some or all of these kinds of approval processes:

• Capital Expense Approvals

• Leave of Absence Approvals

• Document Approvals

• Contract Review Approvals

• IT Project Requests

• Pricing Discount Requests

• New Hire Requests

That’s a lot of people asking for a lot of things, some with multiple approval steps. And on the other end are the people who have to decide whether or not to approve the request. Wouldn’t it be great if everyone could spend less time dealing with the administrative headache of request management and more time working? They can!

Workflow management for approvals processes

With a dedicated approval management system running behind the scenes to manage approval processes:

• Employees log into a portal to submit approval requests and track their progress through the approval process.

• Approvers can easily review and approve any outstanding requests online or by clicking on an email link.

• Administrators can define, create and adjust existing approval workflows or approval steps as needs change.

• Administrators can designate alternate approvers to cover for vacations, illness, and travel.

• Managers can track departmental performance, record approval steps, and manage approval history.

• Auditors have a complete record of who, what, when, where, and why approvals were made.

• Approval information and documents are pushed to document management systems like Sharepoint, IBM Filenet, etc.

[Approval Software Features in Depth]

Accountability means efficiency

Approval workflow management and automation keep organizations efficient and accountable. Imagine the productivity gains when people can focus on value-added activities instead of shuffling paperwork and email. When managers can review an approval path, view performance trends, identify bottlenecks and take action with the facts, people in the approval workflow understand the importance of internal customer service.

Getting It Right the First Time

Miscommunication and mistakes are also significantly decreased when everyone’s part in an approval process is straightforward and defined. Forms, documents, and information are automatically sent to the right person(s) every time. No more approval delays as emails are forwarded around the company for the right person.

Nutrient Workflow’s Approval Process Software is a drag-and-drop approval process builder with advanced business rules that can either mirror your existing process in an automated way or allow you to build an entirely new process. We also offer implementation and service resources to help you think through your project or even build it. Just let us know!

Create custom approval processes with drag and drop ease.

Interested in Automating Your Workflow?

We have a variety of resources to help you on your journey to an automated approval workflow.

• Workflow Tools and eBooks

• Workflow Ideas Weekly eMail Newsletter

• Recorded Demonstration of our Workflow Automation Software

• Request a Live Demonstration