One role, one approval queue, and a band it cannot step outside.
The approvals desk works the requisition queue your budget holders work today. It sees what they see, decides what its band allows, and hands everything else to the person who owns the budget.
Requisitions raised in your ERP or procurement tool, with the budget and the supplier record already beside them.
It reads budgets, contracts, the approved supplier list and recent spend. It writes one thing: the approval status of a requisition, with a message to the requester when something is missing.
You set the value bands and the categories in scope. It approves inside the band it has earned and routes anything above it to the budget holder, with its reasoning attached.
It never approves a requisition it prepared, never splits or merges requests to fit a band, and never adds a supplier. Payments above your threshold stop with a person at every level.
“Decide purchase requisitions against budget, policy and your approval band. Send back anything incomplete, route anything above your band to the budget holder, and hold anything that looks like a split purchase. Report to the finance lead.”
The floors no configuration can weaken
Seven limits sit under every level, level 5 included. Your own limits can only tighten them.
A person decides. The threshold is yours to lower, never to remove.
Nothing is signed, agreed, or terminated without a person.
A relationship is not a record to be closed. It stops with a person.
Reporting lines, roles, and who is accountable are set by people.
No AI employee can raise its own level or anyone else’s.
Anything leaving the organisation is gated, whatever the level.
Handled under your rules, with a person deciding on anything that acts on it.
An approval within band, and a split purchase held.
Each decision is recorded as it is made: what arrived, what it knew, what it was permitted to do, what it decided and who confirmed it. Open either one months later and it replays as it stood.
Why it held: together the three exceed its band, and approving a purchase in parts would breach it.
Budget holders approve routine requests between meetings, often without the budget open.
Routine requests are decided against the budget, with the position attached to every approval.
Split purchases are found at audit, if at all.
Split purchases are held the day they arrive, with every part attached.
Why something was approved lives in an email thread.
Every approval replays as it stood, with what was known and who confirmed it.
Delegated authority is a spreadsheet nobody updates.
Authority is a level on the record, raised by a person and withdrawn automatically.
Two weeks on last month’s requisitions.
It proposes a decision for every requisition your team handled last month. You compare its proposals with what your people decided, and nothing in your systems changes.
Two-week retrospective evaluation
You see where it would have approved, returned, routed or held, and where it would have disagreed with your team, with the reasoning for each.
Budgeted like an operational role · Zero token metering
Expenditure is tied to completed operational outcomes, not token consumption or prompt volume. A high-volume month or quarter never generates a variable surprise bill, providing fixed annual forecasting for CAIOs, CFOs, and Procurement leads.
Spend approvals
The pilot role. Routine approvals within the first band, everything else routed with its reasoning.
Supplier risk watch
Blocks new orders to a supplier whose risk has changed, while the change is reviewed.
Month-end close
Keeps the close on schedule and posts recurring accruals below materiality.
