Most slow approvals are a design problem, not a people problem. The same three managers sign everything, in sequence, from their desks, and nobody knows where a request is stuck. This guide covers where bottlenecks come from, how to decide what needs a person, how to design a workflow that moves, and a worked example from a Riyadh distributor, with the controls that must stay in place.
Where do approval bottlenecks come from?
Approvals slow down for a handful of reasons, and each has a specific fix. Look at your last month of purchase orders, supplier invoices, credit notes or leave requests and you will usually find two or three of these at once.
| Cause | What it looks like | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Everything goes to the top | The general manager approves stationery and cleaning supplies | Approval bands by amount and type |
| Approvals in sequence when they could run in parallel | Finance waits for operations, who waits for the department head | Parallel approval where approvers check different things |
| No time limit | Requests sit for a week while an approver travels | Reminders, then escalation after a set time |
| No deputy | Nothing moves during annual leave | Named delegates for set dates |
| Approval only at a desk | Managers approve once a day, in a batch | Approval from a phone, with the documents attached |
| Checks done by people that a system could do | An approver compares invoice and order line by line | Automatic matching, with people handling only differences |
| Unclear status | Staff chase approvals by phone and WhatsApp | Every request shows who has it and for how long |
The last two matter most. When a person spends approval time checking arithmetic, the approval is both slow and weak: slow because it takes time, weak because people miss things that a system rule would catch every time.
How do you decide what really needs a person?
Start from the risk, not from the current approval chain. For each type of request, ask what could go wrong and whether a rule can check it.
Internal control frameworks such as COSO treat authorisations and approvals as control activities, alongside verifications and reconciliations, and expect segregation of duties to be built in so no single person controls a transaction from start to finish. They do not require a senior signature on every item. A system rule that blocks an invoice which doesn't match its purchase order is a control too, and a more reliable one.
A practical split:
- Rule only. Routine, low-value items where the system can check everything that matters. A supplier invoice that matches an approved purchase order and goods receipt within tolerance needs no further signature.
- One approver. Items within budget where judgement is needed, such as a purchase request or a customer discount within the salesperson's band.
- Two or more approvers. Large amounts, items outside budget, new suppliers, price overrides below cost, credit notes above a limit, or anything that changes master data such as a supplier's bank account.
The approval of a supplier bank account change deserves special mention. It is one of the most common routes for payment fraud, and it should always need a second person, whatever the amount.
How do you design a workflow that moves?
Use these steps to redesign one workflow at a time, starting with the one people complain about most.
- Map the current path. Who approves, in what order, and how long each step takes on average. Your ERP's approval history usually has the timestamps.
- Sort requests by risk band. Use amount, type and budget status. If you already have a purchase approval matrix, reuse its bands.
- Let the system do the checks. Matching, budget availability, price list compliance, duplicate detection. Requests that pass go through; exceptions go to a person.
- Run approvals in parallel where possible. Finance checks budget while operations checks need, at the same time.
- Set time limits. A reminder after one working day, escalation to the approver's manager after two.
- Name delegates. Every approving role has a deputy, set in the system for the dates of an absence.
- Approve with the evidence attached. The purchase order, quote or contract opens with the request, on a phone or a desk.
- Review after a month. Average approval time by step, the share auto-approved, and a sample of auto-approved items checked by internal audit or finance.
What difference does it make? A worked example
A Riyadh food distributor receives about 900 supplier invoices a month. Every invoice went through three approvers in sequence: the department manager, the finance manager and the general manager. Average time from receipt to approval was six working days, and the weekly payment run added more.
Several suppliers offer a 2% discount for payment within 10 days, instead of the usual 30. Invoices from these suppliers total SAR 1,500,000 a month before VAT (SAR 1,725,000 with 15% VAT). Because approvals were slow, the company took the discount on only about 25% of them.
The finance manager redesigned the workflow:
| Invoice band (before VAT) | Invoices a month | Rule | Approvals before | Approvals after |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under SAR 20,000, matched to order and receipt | 620 | Auto-approved | 1,860 | 0 |
| Under SAR 20,000, not matched | 80 | Department manager | 240 | 80 |
| SAR 20,000 to 100,000 | 160 | Finance manager | 480 | 160 |
| Over SAR 100,000 | 40 | Finance manager and general manager | 120 | 80 |
| Total | 900 | 2,700 | 320 |
Approval actions fell from 2,700 to 320 a month, a cut of 88%. Requests waiting more than two working days now escalate automatically, and payment runs moved from weekly to twice a week.
The discount result:
| Before | After | |
|---|---|---|
| Share of discount invoices paid within 10 days | 25% | 85% |
| Discount taken (2% of SAR 1,500,000 × share) | SAR 7,500 a month | SAR 25,500 a month |
| Gain | SAR 18,000 a month, SAR 216,000 a year |
A 2% discount for paying 20 days early is worth about 37% a year in annualised terms (2 ÷ 98 × 365 ÷ 20), far more than most companies earn on cash in the bank. How the VAT on a discounted invoice is adjusted depends on how the supplier documents the discount, so agree the treatment with your tax adviser. All figures are illustrative.
The general manager now sees 40 invoices a month instead of 900, and they are the 40 largest.
Which controls must stay in place?
Faster approval must not mean weaker control. Keep these rules, and have the system enforce them rather than relying on people to remember:
E-invoicing adds a timing rule on the sales side. With e-invoicing in place in Saudi Arabia and being phased in in the UAE, an invoice or credit note is hard to change once it has been issued, so approvals for price overrides, special discounts or credit notes must be completed before the document is issued, not after.
What does HYP see when companies fix their approvals?
Our implementation team sees two opposite problems. Some companies copy their paper approval chain into the system, three signatures for everything, and are surprised when the system is as slow as the paper was. Others switch approvals off to go faster and find, at the audit, that nobody approved the supplier bank change behind a wrong payment.
The companies that get it right start with the system checks, not the signatures. They let matching, budgets and price lists catch the routine errors, send only exceptions and large items to people, and make every approval possible from a phone with the documents attached. They also measure approval time each month, so a new bottleneck is found before staff start working around it.
HYP routes approvals by the rules you set; see how it works on our HYP AI & Automation page. Whatever system you use, look for automatic approval of matched routine items, reminders and escalation, delegation for absences, approval from a phone with the documents attached, and a log of every step.
Related reading: for setting the bands themselves, see Purchase Approval Limits by Amount and Department: How to Set Them Up. For the matching that lets invoices approve themselves, see Three-Way Matching: Checking Purchase Orders, Goods Receipts and Supplier Invoices.