Q1–Q4 2024 · Process structure
How approval routing actually changed this year
The biggest structural shift wasn't in who approves budgets — it was in how requests move between people. Organisations that used to rely on email chains and shared spreadsheets started formalising steps, even if only with simple tools. The difference in cycle time was measurable: informal routing averaged 11 days per request, while structured routing brought that down to around 4 days in most cases we observed.
Before — typical informal flow
Requester emails manager
→ Manager replies with questions
→ Requester sends updated sheet
→ Finance CC'd manually
→ Approval via reply-all thread
→ No audit trail retained
After — structured routing
Requester submits form
→ Auto-routed by department rule
→ Finance notified in parallel
→ Approver receives summary view
→ Decision logged with timestamp
→ Requester notified automatically
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Q1 2024 · Approval bottlenecks
Where requests were getting stuck
The first quarter showed a consistent pattern: requests stalled most often at the second approval level, not the first. Department heads approved quickly — finance review was where delays accumulated, sometimes over 7 working days.
- Finance review averaged 7.3 days in organisations without a dedicated intake process
- Missing cost-centre codes caused 1 in 3 requests to be returned for correction
- Organisations with a named finance contact per department cut review time by roughly half
Q2–Q3 2024 · Delegation patterns
Delegation thresholds people actually used
Mid-year we saw more organisations explicitly setting spend thresholds — amounts below which a manager could approve without finance sign-off. The numbers varied widely, but the act of writing the threshold down made a noticeable difference to how consistently the rule was applied.
- Thresholds ranged from €500 to €5,000 depending on sector and team size
- Written policy reduced "exception" requests by roughly a third in 6 months
- Verbal thresholds were ignored more often than documented ones — not surprising, but worth noting
Q4 2024 · Year-end patterns
What the end of year actually looked like
Year-end brought the predictable rush — but the organisations that had spent the year tightening their process handled it differently. Requests submitted in November were approved within 3 days on average in structured environments, compared to 14+ days in teams still running ad-hoc approval. The gap was most visible when finance teams were processing high volumes simultaneously.
One pattern worth flagging: carry-forward requests — budgets not spent by year-end — created a secondary approval queue in December that most organisations hadn't planned for. Teams that had a documented carry-forward policy processed these in under 2 days. Those without one were still resolving requests in January.
Budget approval programme details →
