Use cases by role
Administration: approvals and filing without lost emails
Approvals with a trail, filing you can actually search, and licences that do not lapse quietly.
Administration moves the most paper and is the department least likely to appear in a digitisation project. The result is familiar: approvals by email nobody can find, invoices filed by whoever received them, and licences that lapse without anything flagging it.
Approvals you can find
Approving a spend by email works until you have to prove who approved it. As an approval request it carries a name, a date and the document it referred to, and it is searched in one place rather than in three people's inboxes.
Filing that still works next year
The filing criterion has to be the one you will search by, not the one that was convenient when saving. By supplier and by financial year works nearly always; by who received it, never — because that person may not be around when it matters.
Worth knowing
If automatic reading extracts invoice number, date and amount, filing stops depending on what the file was called. You search by the data, not by the name.
Licences and permits
These lapse the most quietly: an operating licence, a permit, fleet insurance. Nobody looks at them because they are not part of the daily routine, which is exactly why the alert should arrive on its own with room to renew.
Frequently asked questions
›Can I build a two-level approval?
Yes, as two phases: the second does not open until the first approves.
›Does it work for mandatory tax archiving?
For keeping it ordered and dated, yes. Retention periods are configured in the retention policy.
›Does it integrate with our accounting software?
There is an API: you can push the document and its data, or receive a notice when something is approved.
›What if the approver is on holiday?
The approval can be reassigned to someone else, and the record shows it was reassigned and by whom.
A real case
The situation
An accounting review asks who authorised twelve expenses from the previous year.
What you do
- Filters the approvals for that period
- Exports the list with name, date and the associated document
What you get
Twelve records with a name and a date, instead of searching the inbox of someone who has left.
The situation
Approvals are requested by email and get lost.
What you do
- Launches the approval with its status
What you get
You see who is outstanding without asking.
The situation
The archive lives in network folders nobody tidies.
What you do
- Centralises into files
What you get
It is found without walking the structure.
The situation
An approval is given verbally.
What you do
- Records who approved and when
What you get
The approval has a name and a date.
The situation
The same thing is approved twice just in case.
What you do
- Checks the status before resending
What you get
Nobody receives the same thing twice.
The situation
An auditor asks you to evidence an old approval.
What you do
- Checks that approval's log
What you get
You answer from the trail.
This article answers
- archive invoices and accounting documents
- internal expense approvals with an audit trail
- track company licences and permits
- approval workflows without lost emails
- digitise administration in a small company