Traceability and compliance
Who authorised this exception
Letting something incomplete through is a legitimate decision; being unable to say who took it is not.
No company follows its own procedure one hundred per cent of the time, and that is fine: there are emergencies, waiting customers and situations the procedure never anticipated. What separates an orderly company from an improvising one is not having no exceptions — it is knowing which there were, who authorised them and why.
The most repeated exceptions
| Situation | What is bypassed | What must be written down |
|---|---|---|
| A supplier comes in with incomplete documentation | The requirement to be current | What is missing, until when, and who accepts it |
| Something is signed without the usual review | The approval step | Who decided and with what information in front of them |
| Out-of-spec material is accepted | The quality criterion | Who accepts it and for what specific use |
| Payment goes out without a matched delivery note | The prior reconciliation | Who authorises and what will be done afterwards |
Important
In all four, what gets asked for later is **never the missing document**: it is who decided to proceed without it. An exception with a name, a date and a reason is a management decision; the same exception without them is a breach, even if the outcome was identical.
How to record it without building a new procedure
- 1
In the same file where it happens
Not in a separate exceptions register nobody maintains.
- 2
With who authorises, not "it was authorised"
A name. It is the difference between a decision and a fait accompli.
- 3
With the condition and the deadline
"Comes in today, supplies insurance by Friday" is an exception; "comes in" is a hole.
- 4
And with the closure
If the condition was met, note it; if not, that is information too.
Watch out
The fourth point is barely ever done and it changes the meaning of everything above. An exception opened and never closed stops being an exception: it becomes the new way of working without anyone deciding it. If a review shows many open, the problem is no longer the exceptions — it is that the procedure asks for something operations cannot deliver.
What it is for later
The last is the most useful and the least examined. Exceptions move before the compliance percentage does, because they signal real friction while the numbers still look fine.
Worth knowing
None of this needs a form: it is enough that the decision is written where it happens, with who and why. A separate exceptions register survives three months; a note in the file survives as long as the file.
›Does having recorded exceptions look bad?
Far worse is not having them recorded and having them surface on their own.
›Who should be able to authorise them?
Whoever answers for that area. If anyone can, it is not an exception: it is the real process.
›What about genuine emergencies?
Authorise them the same way, and note it the same day. What does not work is never noting it.
A real case
The situation
A company lets a subcontractor on site without current insurance because of an urgency.
What you do
- Records who authorises it, what is missing and until when
- Closes the exception when the policy arrives
What you get
The audit sees a controlled decision instead of an unexplained access.
The situation
An exception is made and nobody knows who authorised it.
What you do
- Records who authorised and when
What you get
The authorisation has a name and a date.
The situation
The exception is requested by phone.
What you do
- Asks for the authorisation in writing
What you get
The exceptional stops depending on two memories.
The situation
The exception repeats and nobody notices.
What you do
- Checks how many times it has been authorised
What you get
The exception stops becoming the rule unnoticed.
The situation
Authorisation is given without recording the reason.
What you do
- Records the reason alongside the authorisation
What you get
Months later it is understood why.
The situation
A review asks about an old exception.
What you do
- Checks the authorisation log
What you get
You answer from the record.
This article answers
- recording an approved exception
- who authorised bypassing the procedure
- justifying an off-process approval
- decision traceability