How approval bottlenecks slow down finance—and what businesses can do about them
There is a particular kind of frustration that almost every finance professional knows.
You receive an invoice.
You can’t process it because it hasn’t been approved.
You follow up with the department.
They say they sent it to their manager.
The manager says they haven’t seen it.
You send another email.
Then another.
Three days later, someone finally approves it.
And now Finance has to rush to make sure the supplier gets paid on time.
Sound familiar?
Approvals are supposed to create financial control. But when the process is poorly designed, they can become one of the biggest bottlenecks in the finance function.
The result is a strange situation:
Finance has responsibility for paying the bills, but often has very little control over how quickly those bills move through the approval process.
Approval Delays Are More Expensive Than They Look
An approval delay might seem like a small administrative problem.
One invoice sits in someone’s inbox for two days. Another waits for a manager who is travelling. A third gets lost in a long email thread.
Individually, these delays may not seem significant.
But multiply them across hundreds of invoices and multiple departments, and the impact becomes much larger.
Delayed approvals can lead to:
- Late supplier payments
- Missed payment deadlines
- Disrupted supplier relationships
- Duplicate follow-ups
- Last-minute payment requests
- Poor cash-flow planning
- Increased administrative work
- Difficulty closing the books on time
Finance ends up spending valuable time asking:
“Has this been approved yet?”
Instead of asking:
“What are the numbers telling us?”
Finance Shouldn’t Have to Chase Every Invoice
A common approval process looks something like this:
Supplier sends invoice → Email inbox → Finance forwards it → Manager approves → Finance follows up → Manager approves → Finance processes payment
The problem isn’t necessarily the approval itself.
The problem is that the process depends heavily on people remembering to take action.
If an invoice is sitting in someone’s inbox, Finance may not know whether:
- It has been seen
- It is being reviewed
- It has been rejected
- More information is required
- The approver is unavailable
- It was accidentally overlooked
This creates unnecessary uncertainty.
A good approval workflow should make the status of a transaction visible.
Not Every Invoice Needs the Same Approval
Another issue is treating every purchase as if it carries the same level of financial risk.
A KSh 5,000 office expense shouldn’t necessarily go through the same approval process as a KSh 2 million capital expenditure.
Businesses can create approval thresholds based on:
- Transaction value
- Department
- Expense category
- Budget
- Supplier
- Type of purchase
For example:
Low-value purchases: Department-level approval
Medium-value purchases: Department Head approval
High-value purchases: Senior Management and/or Finance approval
The exact structure will depend on the organisation.
The principle is simple:
The greater the financial risk, the greater the level of scrutiny.
Approval Controls Shouldn’t Become Bureaucracy
There is a danger on the other side too.
A business can create so many approval layers that nobody can get anything done.
Imagine a KSh 3,000 purchase requiring five separate approvals.
That’s not strong financial control.
That’s unnecessary bureaucracy.
Good controls should be proportionate to the risk.
The objective is to prevent unauthorised or inappropriate spending without making routine business activity unnecessarily difficult.
The best approval process is one that employees understand and can follow without constantly asking Finance what to do.
Make the Approval Status Visible
One of the biggest improvements businesses can make is simply creating visibility.
Instead of relying on email chains, Finance should be able to see something like:
| Invoice | Amount | Department | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Supplier A | KSh 85,000 | Marketing | Approved |
| Supplier B | KSh 240,000 | Operations | Pending |
| Supplier C | KSh 42,000 | HR | Rejected |
| Supplier D | KSh 150,000 | IT | Awaiting Review |
Now Finance knows where everything stands.
More importantly, the person responsible for the approval can see what requires their attention.
This changes the process from:
Finance chasing people
to:
The workflow showing people what needs to happen.
This Is Where Accounting Software Can Help
As businesses grow, managing approvals through spreadsheets and email becomes increasingly difficult.
Accounting platforms such as QuickBooks and Zoho Books can help centralise financial transactions and provide a more structured environment for managing bills, expenses, suppliers and financial records.
Depending on the configuration and workflow, businesses can use accounting systems to improve visibility around:
- Bills
- Expenses
- Suppliers
- Purchase orders
- Payment records
- Supporting documentation
- Approval processes
- Financial reporting
The objective isn’t to automate every financial decision.
It is to reduce the amount of manual coordination required to move routine transactions through the finance process.
Automation Doesn’t Mean Removing Financial Control
Some finance professionals are understandably cautious about automation.
And they should be.
The objective isn’t to create a system where invoices are automatically paid without anyone reviewing them.
Instead, automation should handle repetitive administrative tasks while keeping appropriate controls in place.
For example:
Invoice received → Correct department identified → Approval requested → Approver reviews → Finance processes payment
The human decision remains.
The difference is that the system helps move the transaction through the process and provides visibility along the way.
What Happens When Approvals Are Delayed?
Consider a supplier invoice for KSh 500,000.
It arrives on the 25th of the month.
The invoice needs approval from a department manager.
The manager is travelling.
Nobody else is authorised to approve it.
The invoice sits for ten days.
Finance eventually receives the approval and processes payment.
On paper, the business may simply see a late payment.
But there can be other consequences.
The supplier may:
- Follow up repeatedly
- Put the account on hold
- Delay future deliveries
- Remove preferential payment terms
- Lose confidence in the business
A small internal approval bottleneck can therefore become an external supplier problem.
Approval Delays Can Also Affect Month-End Close
This is another area finance teams often underestimate.
Suppose the business received services during September but the invoice isn’t approved until October.
Finance may have to determine how that expense should be accounted for.
The longer invoices remain unprocessed, the harder it can become to get a complete picture of expenses incurred during the period.
This contributes to one of the reasons month-end close can become unnecessarily stressful.
Finance is trying to close the books while still chasing departments for information about transactions that should have been processed earlier.
A well-managed approval workflow can help reduce that uncertainty.
Create Clear Ownership
One of the simplest ways to improve approvals is to make ownership clear.
Every transaction should have an identifiable person or role responsible for approving it.
Not:
“Someone in Marketing needs to approve this.”
But:
“Marketing Manager approves marketing expenditure up to X.”
Clear ownership makes it easier to identify where a transaction is stuck.
It also creates accountability.
If an invoice has been sitting for five days, Finance should be able to see exactly who needs to act.
Set Expectations for Approval Times
Businesses can also establish simple service-level expectations.
For example:
- Routine invoices: 1–2 working days
- Medium-value purchases: 2–3 working days
- High-value purchases: 3–5 working days
Again, the exact timelines will depend on the business.
But having an expectation changes the conversation.
Instead of Finance repeatedly asking:
“Can you approve this?”
The process becomes:
“This invoice has been pending approval for three working days and is now outside the agreed timeline.”
That’s a much stronger control environment.
Finance Should Measure the Approval Process
If approvals are consistently slowing down the finance function, the business should be able to identify where the problem is occurring.
Useful metrics can include:
- Average approval time
- Number of invoices awaiting approval
- Number of overdue approvals
- Approval time by department
- Number of rejected invoices
- Number of invoices returned for missing information
- Number of invoices requiring manual follow-up
This can reveal patterns.
Perhaps one department consistently takes twice as long as others.
Perhaps high-value purchases are getting stuck because there are too many approval layers.
Perhaps invoices are frequently returned because suppliers are submitting incomplete information.
Once Finance can see the pattern, the process can be improved.
The Goal Isn’t Faster Approvals at Any Cost
The purpose of improving approval workflows isn’t simply to make people approve invoices faster.
It’s to create the right balance between:
Speed + Control + Visibility
A good process should allow legitimate purchases to move quickly while ensuring that significant spending receives appropriate scrutiny.
That’s what financial control should look like.
Not Finance becoming the department that blocks spending.
Not employees bypassing Finance because the process is too complicated.
But a system where everyone understands:
Who approves what.
When approval is required.
How long it should take.
Where the transaction currently sits.
A Better Approval Process Can Start Small
Businesses don’t need to redesign their entire finance function overnight.
Start by identifying the biggest bottlenecks.
Ask:
Which invoices are regularly delayed?
Which departments create the most approval follow-ups?
Which transactions require too many approvals?
Where are approvals currently happening—email, WhatsApp, spreadsheets or accounting software?
Who is responsible for each approval?
How long does an average invoice take to move from receipt to payment?
These answers can reveal where the biggest improvements are needed.
Finance Should Spend Less Time Chasing and More Time Analysing
The finance function has evolved.
Finance teams are increasingly expected to provide insights, manage cash flow, support decision-making and help the business understand its financial performance.
But those responsibilities become difficult when Finance spends hours every week chasing approvals.
Every unnecessary follow-up is time that could have been spent on:
- Cash-flow forecasting
- Budget analysis
- Cost control
- Financial reporting
- Business planning
- Profitability analysis
- Supporting management decisions
The goal of a better approval process isn’t simply to make Finance’s administrative work easier.
It is to free Finance to do the work that actually adds value to the business.
How Remotix Solutions Can Help
Remotix Solutions helps businesses improve their finance processes through solutions such as QuickBooks and Zoho Books.
By bringing bills, expenses, suppliers, purchasing information and financial records into a more structured workflow, businesses can reduce manual follow-ups while improving visibility and control.
Because Finance shouldn’t have to spend its day asking:
“Who is approving this?”
It should be spending that time asking:
“What do these numbers mean for the business?”