How to Create an Approval Process and Workflow

By Kate Eby | September 18, 2017

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Approval processes and workflows help to automate simple, repeatable tasks, so that you can focus on the work that matters most. Many organizations create specific approval processes to manage budgets and invoices, as well as creative and marketing initiatives. 

Included on this page, you’ll learn what to include in an approval process ,  and how to create an approval process for a variety of needs, including content approval processes , invoice submission , and purchase order approvals .

What Is an Approval Process?

Organizations create approval processes to have a clear, routine way of approving documents, invoices, budgets, purchase orders, and more. Approval processes standardize an organization’s internal processes by creating a reliable, repeatable system. 

Approval processes are a type of workflow , which is any series of ordered steps that you create to ensure you complete work the same way every time.

Creating an approval process can simply mean defining the procedures that you will follow to approve work. You can choose to create a manual approval process where employees follow specified steps and have a manual record of completion, or no record at all. Manual approval processes can be extremely tedious and time-consuming, which can lead to delayed delivery of goods, missed payments, poor document management, and a non-uniform approval process. Additionally, manual processes tend to be less transparent, so some employees might not be aware of the processes and therefore less compliant. 

As a result, many organizations have transitioned to automated approval processes and workflows. Companies can use software to create a tailored approval process, which then guides users through that process to ensure work is completed and approved the same way every time. The main benefits of automated approval processes include saving time, maximizing efficiency, and standardizing processes. 

Additionally, automated approval processes improve transparency and compliance within an organization, since everyone is forced to complete work according to predefined criteria. They also improve decision making, such as whether or not to adopt a project, because the process you define will help you more clearly identify costs and benefits of any work proposal. However, some people struggle with the lack of flexibility that hard-coded automation can inflict upon processes. 

What Is a Project Approval Process?

A project approval process is the process an organization creates to determine which new projects to take on. A project approval team reviews proposed projects and chooses projects based on predefined selection criteria, to help the organization meet its goals.

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Elements of an Approval Process

While each approval process will differ based on its purpose or the organization’s specific requirements, there are some general tasks that you will likely include when designing your own. These include:

  • Submission: An approval process usually begins with someone submitting something (a document, invoice, purchase order, etc.). You’ll need to create a submission portal where users go to submit their work. Think about including a submission receipt option, so submitters have a record of their activity. 
  • Assign Approvers: The approval process hinges on someone else (not the submitter) approving the work, so you’ll need to identify the person or people who have the final say. If your process has multiple approval levels, define who will approve which aspects of work at each level. 
  • Set Permission Levels: Define the level of authority each user should have. Most systems have features to delineate among viewer, editor, and administrator permissions, so you can control who edits, rejects, or approves submissions. 
  • Set Due Dates: As with any project, it’s important to set deadlines to keep your workflows moving and prevent work backlogs.
  • Automatic Alerts and Notifications: A program that automatically sends alerts and notifications about the status of a submission can help expedite workflow. Automatic alerts may be approval or rejection notifications, update requests (where the approver requests that the submitter makes changes to the original submission), or a simple status update alerting users that work is advancing to the next step in the process. Submissions may have to go through multiple rounds of edits before they are approved, so automatic alerts and notifications can ensure that items are accomplished quickly and that everyone is aware of the current status. 
  • View User History: See who has made changes, to what, and when. 
  • Lock Record: This will make the record uneditable, so that no user can change the log of actions. 
  • Edit Record: In some cases, you might want the record to be kept editable - for instance, if you made a mistake or need to keep certain information private from other parties. 

While we’re on the topic of automated workflows, it’s important to note that some programs also offer additional functionality that can create a more customized feel, or help disrupt some of the inflexibility that can come with automation. Some of these functions include the following:

  • Email Templates: Some platforms have built-in email templates for notifications. This functionality adds a personalized touch and also provides a space for enhanced communication. 
  • Edit Requests: Similar to update requests, edit requests specifically notify a submitter when the submission has been (temporarily) rejected and that it requires changes before it can be approved. 
  • Task Lists: It can be helpful to build task assignment into the approval process, allowing each employee to clearly see their responsibilities, and informing management of resource allocation. 

Many of these elements will be present in the approval process you design, regardless of the specific project or type or organization. In the next section, we’ll discuss the software programs that allow you to build approval processes and workflows, and additional features to consider. 

Read about the process of creating workflows and automating workflows .

3 Productivity Killers Your Employees Want You to Automate [INFOGRAPHIC]

Software Systems That Support Creating Approval Processes

There are a variety of software tools that you can use to design and build custom approval processes and workflows using the elements defined in the previous section. Regardless of which system you choose, look for a program that supports the following functionality (note that some of these items are named differently in certain products, so make sure you understand the utility of the feature):

  • Create Discrete Steps: An approval process is only effective if there are clear, defined, and repeatable steps. Choose a program that allows you to write discrete steps that users can easily follow and repeat an infinite number of times. 
  • Templates Built-In Workflows: Pre-built templates are helpful if you’ll be creating multiple workflows for a variety of specific use cases. This way, you won’t have to start from scratch every time, or hard-code any parameters. Check out the free downloadable workflow templates and process mapping templates . 
  • Customization: Although built-in workflows can help you get started, you may want to retain some flexibility. Choose a program with customization options so you can tailor your process; if it doesn’t fit your needs, there’s no benefit. 
  • Edit Capabilities: Once you build your workflow and start using it, you might need to make changes to the procedures you initially put in place. Systems that allow editing will save time. 
  • Mobile Features: Solutions that offer mobile capabilities enable your team to submit work, receive notifications, make requests, and approve work from their phone or tablet. 
  • Signature Collection: If you’re approving sensitive or highly important documents and information, you may require a signature. Some programs offer signature collection so that you can verify approvals. 
  • Feedback Collection: Perhaps you want to create a workflow that elicits feedback, rather than approves work. In this case, look for a program with qualitative collection capabilities. This might be a template option within a larger system (as in Sharepoint, for example). 
  • Notification Templates: You might also want to send notifications in a specific way, such as an in-app notification, email, or push notification on another device. If you want to control the way a user receives notifications, choose a platform with this function.

How to Design an Approval Process

You can design an approval process by defining processes for submission, supporting documentation, review steps, who will give approval, who will edit submissions, and how you will reject certain submissions.

These steps are as follows:

  • Submission: Define how the work will be submitted.
  • Supporting Documentation: Set any additional documents that are required to be included along with a submission.
  • Steps: Define all the steps in the review process.
  • Approvers: Set criteria for who will review each submission.
  • Editing: Decide who (if anyone) can edit submissions.
  • Rejection: Define the criteria for rejecting submissions.

You can think of approval processes as a series of pathways and positive feedback loops. There are often only two possible end-points: reject or approve the submission. However, there are multiple steps and pathways that occur before reaching a conclusion. 

The importance of pre-planning cannot be understated, as this underlying logic will create the structure from which you can build an actual approval workflow. (When we use the term logic here, we are not referring to business logic , which is the part of a software program that encodes the real-world business rules about how workflows can function. Instead, we mean the theoretical logic that will guide the structure of the approval processes you design.)

There are a number of questions that can guide your structural design:

  • How should requests be submitted? Decide how submitters should submit their work, including when, how/where (for example, an online form or portal), to whom, and what to include in the initial proposal.
  • What documentation should you include? Decide if any supporting documentation must be part of the original submission, or if editors and approvers need to send documentation along with their approval or rejection. If so, make sure the software platform can support document storage.
  • How many steps are there, and what are they? The decisions made at this point are the meat of your design process. Here you create the pathways from initial submission to final approval or rejection. For each stage, define the criteria that must be met for a submission to move to the next stage. 
  • Who approves each step? Identify approvers for each stage of the approval process.
  • Who should edit submissions, and at which steps? If your process requires edits at certain stages, who will edit the submission (for example, it could be the original submitter, a designated editor, or the approver)? Deciding who is responsible for editing may change your sequencing.
  • Under what criteria should requests be automatically approved or rejected? There might be instances where an automatic approval or rejection is permissible. Be sure to define these parameters in your logic so you can apply it to the program when you build your process.
  • What actions happen when a request is approved or rejected? Your approval process should not exist in a silo, so consider how it is connected to the execution processes, once a submission is approved or rejected. Consider linking notifications to kick off a project or pull the next submission.

What Is a Project Approval Workflow?

A project approval workflow is a sequence of steps that a project goes through during its lifecycle. At each milestone, the progress of the project is reviewed to determine if it’s ready to begin the next phase.

How to Create an Approval Process

Approval processes can benefit organizations of any type or size, across all industries. You can create an approval process for any repeatable system that can be broken down into discrete steps to formally approve a submitted piece of work. Some of the most common types of approval processes include invoice submissions, documents and creative assets, purchase orders, projected budgets, project plans, college applications and admission, or Food and Drug Administration (FDA) drug approval. 

Below we show you the essential aspects of each of these approval processes, and how to design the process itself. While the specific steps you take to build an approval process will vary based on the system you choose to build it in, these logic maps will help you define the workflow that works best for the situation and your specific requirements.

How to Create a Content or Document Approval Process

Content and documents should be reviewed and approved before being posted or released. At a minimum, this process will include task assignment, writer notifications, one or multiple rounds of drafts and edits, content approval, and content publish.

Content approvals are ubiquitous across all industries and types of organizations. They include any creative asset, written work such as an article or social media copy, or any other documentation that needs approval prior to publication. 

To create a content approval process, follow this outline of steps:

  • Content Manager Assigns Tasks: The editor creates a schedule of tasks and assigns specific work items to each content producer (in this example, a writer).  
  • Writer Receives Email Notification: Institute a standardized way to notify writers of their tasks. Email notifications are easy to use and provide a record of assignment.
  • Writer Reviews Tasks: The writer reviews the assignment and, if necessary, seeks clarification on tasks from the editor. 
  • Writer Submits First Draft to Editor: This is the initial submission step where the writer submits the first draft of their work for editor reviews. 
  • Editor Returns Comments: In most content approval processes, there will be at least one round of edits. So, build in a step where the editor makes edits and returns the submission to the writer to make additional changes if needed. 
  • Writer Submits Final Draft: Once the necessary edits are made, they return the content to the editor for a second review. 
  • Approve: The content is formally approved. 
  • Reject: The writer must make more edits. This cycle of edits can continue until the editor is satisfied and the content is officially approved. 

business plan approval process

How to Create an Invoice Approval Process

In an invoice approval process, vendors, contractors, and employees need to submit invoices to be paid or reimbursed.  This process, at minimum, will include submission, review, and support documentation.

Invoice submission is another common practice that a standardized approval process can improve. On a monthly basis, you might receive invoices from vendors, contractors, or even internal employees seeking reimbursement, so creating a repeatable, reliable approval process will help ensure that everyone is correctly paid on time.

To create an invoice approval process, follow this outline of steps:

  • Vendor Mails or Submits Invoice Through an Online Portal to Accounts Payable: The vendor submits their invoice to the correct department or single approver (typically accounting or accounts payable). If using an online portal, the invoice is automatically routed to the correct person or department.
  • Invoice Meets Requirements: The invoice can move on to the next stage in the approval process. 
  • Invoice Does Not Meet Requirements: The invoice is returned to the vendor, who will update and resubmit the invoice.  
  • Support Material Included: The invoice is placed in the payment queue, processed, and sent to the submitter. 
  • Support Material Not Included: The invoice is placed on hold until the approving body compiles all necessary documentation. Once this happens, the invoice returns to the final review stage and if approved, is placed in the payment queue and then processed.

business plan approval process

How to Create a Purchase Order Approval Process

Purchase orders (PO) are a key part of many businesses. To ensure they are correct, a PO approval process includes buyer submission, seller approval or rejection, and, if approved, order processing. 

A purchase order (PO) is a document sent from a buyer to a seller to request a certain amount of goods or services at an agreed upon price. Creating an approval process for purchase orders can help you monitor the pace of incoming requests, manage inventory and resources, and provide a log of your external business.

To create a purchase order approval process, follow this outline of steps:

  • Approved: If everything is correct and the customer has no outstanding balance, the PO is approved and the order is processed. 
  • Outstanding Still Due: If the customer has an outstanding balance, it is sent to another party for review and approval (Step 2 below). 
  • PO from New Customer: The new customer may have to complete a credit application to ensure that they are equipped to pay for the goods or services requested in the PO.
  • Approved: The purchase order has been approved and the order is processed. 
  • Not Approved: The purchase order has failed to meet requirements and is rejected. The buyer will sometimes request another payment form, or the seller might revise the PO and resubmit it to the controller for approval.

business plan approval process

How to Create an Annual Projected Budget Approval Process

To create a budget review process, follow these steps: request a budget; set up a system; develop a proposed budget; review; modify and distribute the proposal; modify and submit the updated proposal.

Most companies have to propose an annual or quarterly budget before they can formally adopt projects and allocate funds. Since most - if not all - of an organization’s operations depend on having a pre-approved budget, it’s essential to have an approval process in place. 

To create a budget approval process, follow these steps:

  • Request Budget: The executive board submits their proposed budget. 
  • Set Up Budget System: If you don’t already have a system in place to manage and allocate budget, you can build this into your approval process. Complete this step early, as it will inform the rest of your budget review and fund allocation process. 
  • Develop Base Budget and Distribute: The budget coordinator defines the base annual budget from which you will measure the proposed budgetary needs. 
  • Review, Refine Rules, and Distribute: This is the initial review, usually performed by an analyst. 
  • Modify and Submit Budget: Internal budget preparers modify the proposed budget based on the reviewer’s (analyst’s) feedback and resubmits it. In some cases, the original submitter (in this case, the executive board) can also be responsible for modifying and resubmitting the budget.
  • Approved: If approved, the budget reviewer submits the final version of the budget back to the analyst for another round of reviews. 
  • Rejected: The budget goes back to the budget preparer for another round of edits, and is then resubmitted to the budget reviewer. This process may require multiple attempts before the budget is approved.
  • Review Submitted Budget: The analyst performs another review on the submitted budget, which has now been approved by the budget reviewer.
  • Consolidate Budgets and Present: Now that the budget has been approved by all analyst and review levels, the budget coordinator compiles the information and presents it to the executive board for final sign off. 
  • Approved: The budget is now officially approved and is adopted into the organization’s yearly planning. Funds are allocated. 
  • Rejected: The executive board resubmits their proposed budget (perhaps with modifications) to the budget coordinator; the cycle begins again at Step 3.

business plan approval process

How to Create a Project Plan and Budget Approval Process

Every project that an organization adopts must first pass through a series of approvals. With so many competing projects, budgets, and departments, an approval process helps organize and prioritize projects. 

To create a project plan and budget approval process, follow this outline of steps:

  • Submit Project Proposal: This is the initial submission, where teams define and request the project they want to take on. You can find a project plan template here . 
  • Estimate Baseline Costs and Schedules and Prioritize Projects: In these phases, draft a budget and timeline based on your project proposal, and roughly prioritize projects. There may be some back and forth between these two steps before advancing to the next step. 
  • Evaluate Funding Alternatives and Scenarios: It’s important to consider alternatives - both to your project specifications and budget - in the event that your proposal is rejected. Build in a step to draft other options, or aspects of your initial plan. 
  • Approved: If approved, funding is allocated for your project and you can hold a project kickoff.
  • Rejected: If rejected, the proposal is terminated. However, you can also build a step for submitters to revise the project plan and resubmit for approval.

business plan approval process

How to Create a College Acceptance and Admission Process

The college admission process today involves, at a high level, applications, interviews, conditional offers, and admission.

Colleges and universities receive a high volume of applicants and as such, must create an automated, consistent approval process for admitting and enrolling students. While the steps listed below are what academic institutions might follow, you can also edit the process outline for admission to other programs. 

To create a college acceptance and admission process, follow this outline of steps:

  • Approved: The application passes the initial screening and next-step information is sent to the student applying. 
  • Rejected: The student’s application is terminated and information is sent to the applicant.
  • Interview Successful: If the interview is successful, the college or university issues a conditional offer to the applicant and moves onto the next stage. 
  • Interview Unsuccessful: The student’s application is rejected.
  • Students Accepts Offer: Student accepts the conditions of the university’s offer and pays tuition to the school. 
  • Student Refuses Offer: The application is dropped. At this point, the university might also solicit feedback from the applicant to use for future application cycles. 
  • College Issues Admission to the Student: Once the college receives the tuition, the student is enrolled in the university.

business plan approval process

How to Create a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Drug Approval Process

Getting a drug approved involves the following stages: pre-clinical , or drug discovery or screening; clinical , which involves three phases of clinical trial; review by the FDA; and post-marketing , when the healthcare industry sells and markets the drug.

Every pharmaceutical drug on the market today in the U.S. has to pass through a lengthy approval process, as enforced by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The following outline is taken directly from the FDA's website .

Stage One: Pre-Clinical: In this stage, the person or body sponsoring the drug (drug sponsor) discovers and screens the drug. 

  • Drug Developed and Animals Tested: Once the sponsor has developed a new drug and wants to have it approved by the FDA, they perform animal testing to gain information on the safety and efficacy of the drug compound.
  • Investigational New Drug (IND) Application: The drug sponsor submits an IND application to the FDA to seek approval. This application includes information on the results of the animal tests, as well as on the composition and manufacturing of the drug.

Stage Two: Clinical: This stage consists of the drug sponsor’s clinical studies and trials of the proposed drug. 

  • Phase 1 (20-80 volunteers): This testing phase is primarily concerned with identifying the most common side effects, and how the drug is processed within the human body. It emphasizes safety. 
  • Phase 2 (hundreds of volunteers): This phase emphasizes effectiveness, and tests how the drug affects a certain disease or illness. 
  • Phase 3 (thousands of volunteers): In this phase, testers gather more information about both the safety and effectiveness of the proposed drug. They also test it in combination with other drugs, different dosages, and different populations to understand the effects.

Stage Three: New Drug Application (NDA) Review: The FDA performs a comprehensive review on the new drug to ensure it meets requirements and is safe to approve.

  • Review Meeting: The FDA meets with the drug sponsor to discuss the findings of the testing.
  • NDA Application: The sponsor submits a formal application, and includes all data from the tests they’ve completed on both animals and humans.
  • Filed: If the FDA files the NDA, it moves on to the next review step. 
  • Not Filed: The FDA can also choose not to file the NDA. At this point, the drug proposal is terminated.
  • Approved: If approved, the drug moves on to the next step. 
  • Rejected: If rejected, the proposal is terminated.
  • Drug Labeling: The FDA reviews the official drug labeling and edits it to ensure the proper messaging and communication to health care professionals and consumers.
  • Facility Inspection: The FDA performs an inspection of the facilities where the drug will be manufactured to ensure safety. 
  • FDA Drug Approval: The drug is formally approved by the FDA.

Stage Four: Post-Marketing: Ongoing efforts by healthcare industries to appropriately market the drug to the public.

business plan approval process

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How to Write a Business Plan, Step by Step

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Many or all of the products featured here are from our partners who compensate us. This influences which products we write about and where and how the product appears on a page. However, this does not influence our evaluations. Our opinions are our own. Here is a list of our partners and here's how we make money .

What is a business plan?

1. write an executive summary, 2. describe your company, 3. state your business goals, 4. describe your products and services, 5. do your market research, 6. outline your marketing and sales plan, 7. perform a business financial analysis, 8. make financial projections, 9. summarize how your company operates, 10. add any additional information to an appendix, business plan tips and resources.

A business plan outlines your business’s financial goals and explains how you’ll achieve them over the next three to five years. Here’s a step-by-step guide to writing a business plan that will offer a strong, detailed road map for your business.

Bizee

A business plan is a document that explains what your business does, how it makes money and who its customers are. Internally, writing a business plan should help you clarify your vision and organize your operations. Externally, you can share it with potential lenders and investors to show them you’re on the right track.

Business plans are living documents; it’s OK for them to change over time. Startups may update their business plans often as they figure out who their customers are and what products and services fit them best. Mature companies might only revisit their business plan every few years. Regardless of your business’s age, brush up this document before you apply for a business loan .

» Need help writing? Learn about the best business plan software .

This is your elevator pitch. It should include a mission statement, a brief description of the products or services your business offers and a broad summary of your financial growth plans.

Though the executive summary is the first thing your investors will read, it can be easier to write it last. That way, you can highlight information you’ve identified while writing other sections that go into more detail.

» MORE: How to write an executive summary in 6 steps

Next up is your company description. This should contain basic information like:

Your business’s registered name.

Address of your business location .

Names of key people in the business. Make sure to highlight unique skills or technical expertise among members of your team.

Your company description should also define your business structure — such as a sole proprietorship, partnership or corporation — and include the percent ownership that each owner has and the extent of each owner’s involvement in the company.

Lastly, write a little about the history of your company and the nature of your business now. This prepares the reader to learn about your goals in the next section.

» MORE: How to write a company overview for a business plan

business plan approval process

The third part of a business plan is an objective statement. This section spells out what you’d like to accomplish, both in the near term and over the coming years.

If you’re looking for a business loan or outside investment, you can use this section to explain how the financing will help your business grow and how you plan to achieve those growth targets. The key is to provide a clear explanation of the opportunity your business presents to the lender.

For example, if your business is launching a second product line, you might explain how the loan will help your company launch that new product and how much you think sales will increase over the next three years as a result.

» MORE: How to write a successful business plan for a loan

In this section, go into detail about the products or services you offer or plan to offer.

You should include the following:

An explanation of how your product or service works.

The pricing model for your product or service.

The typical customers you serve.

Your supply chain and order fulfillment strategy.

You can also discuss current or pending trademarks and patents associated with your product or service.

Lenders and investors will want to know what sets your product apart from your competition. In your market analysis section , explain who your competitors are. Discuss what they do well, and point out what you can do better. If you’re serving a different or underserved market, explain that.

Here, you can address how you plan to persuade customers to buy your products or services, or how you will develop customer loyalty that will lead to repeat business.

Include details about your sales and distribution strategies, including the costs involved in selling each product .

» MORE: R e a d our complete guide to small business marketing

If you’re a startup, you may not have much information on your business financials yet. However, if you’re an existing business, you’ll want to include income or profit-and-loss statements, a balance sheet that lists your assets and debts, and a cash flow statement that shows how cash comes into and goes out of the company.

Accounting software may be able to generate these reports for you. It may also help you calculate metrics such as:

Net profit margin: the percentage of revenue you keep as net income.

Current ratio: the measurement of your liquidity and ability to repay debts.

Accounts receivable turnover ratio: a measurement of how frequently you collect on receivables per year.

This is a great place to include charts and graphs that make it easy for those reading your plan to understand the financial health of your business.

This is a critical part of your business plan if you’re seeking financing or investors. It outlines how your business will generate enough profit to repay the loan or how you will earn a decent return for investors.

Here, you’ll provide your business’s monthly or quarterly sales, expenses and profit estimates over at least a three-year period — with the future numbers assuming you’ve obtained a new loan.

Accuracy is key, so carefully analyze your past financial statements before giving projections. Your goals may be aggressive, but they should also be realistic.

NerdWallet’s picks for setting up your business finances:

The best business checking accounts .

The best business credit cards .

The best accounting software .

Before the end of your business plan, summarize how your business is structured and outline each team’s responsibilities. This will help your readers understand who performs each of the functions you’ve described above — making and selling your products or services — and how much each of those functions cost.

If any of your employees have exceptional skills, you may want to include their resumes to help explain the competitive advantage they give you.

Finally, attach any supporting information or additional materials that you couldn’t fit in elsewhere. That might include:

Licenses and permits.

Equipment leases.

Bank statements.

Details of your personal and business credit history, if you’re seeking financing.

If the appendix is long, you may want to consider adding a table of contents at the beginning of this section.

How much do you need?

with Fundera by NerdWallet

We’ll start with a brief questionnaire to better understand the unique needs of your business.

Once we uncover your personalized matches, our team will consult you on the process moving forward.

Here are some tips to write a detailed, convincing business plan:

Avoid over-optimism: If you’re applying for a business bank loan or professional investment, someone will be reading your business plan closely. Providing unreasonable sales estimates can hurt your chances of approval.

Proofread: Spelling, punctuation and grammatical errors can jump off the page and turn off lenders and prospective investors. If writing and editing aren't your strong suit, you may want to hire a professional business plan writer, copy editor or proofreader.

Use free resources: SCORE is a nonprofit association that offers a large network of volunteer business mentors and experts who can help you write or edit your business plan. The U.S. Small Business Administration’s Small Business Development Centers , which provide free business consulting and help with business plan development, can also be a resource.

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The Business Planning Process: 6 Steps To Creating a New Plan

The Business Planning Process 6 Steps to Create a New Plan

In this article, we will define and explain the basic business planning process to help your business move in the right direction.

What is Business Planning?

Business planning is the process whereby an organization’s leaders figure out the best roadmap for growth and document their plan for success.

The business planning process includes diagnosing the company’s internal strengths and weaknesses, improving its efficiency, working out how it will compete against rival firms in the future, and setting milestones for progress so they can be measured.

The process includes writing a new business plan. What is a business plan? It is a written document that provides an outline and resources needed to achieve success. Whether you are writing your plan from scratch, from a simple business plan template , or working with an experienced business plan consultant or writer, business planning for startups, small businesses, and existing companies is the same.

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The best business planning process is to use our business plan template to streamline the creation of your plan: Download Growthink’s Ultimate Business Plan Template and finish your business plan & financial model in hours.

The Better Business Planning Process

The business plan process includes 6 steps as follows:

  • Do Your Research
  • Calculate Your Financial Forecast
  • Draft Your Plan
  • Revise & Proofread
  • Nail the Business Plan Presentation

We’ve provided more detail for each of these key business plan steps below.

1. Do Your Research

Conduct detailed research into the industry, target market, existing customer base,  competitors, and costs of the business begins the process. Consider each new step a new project that requires project planning and execution. You may ask yourself the following questions:

  • What are your business goals?
  • What is the current state of your business?
  • What are the current industry trends?
  • What is your competition doing?

There are a variety of resources needed, ranging from databases and articles to direct interviews with other entrepreneurs, potential customers, or industry experts. The information gathered during this process should be documented and organized carefully, including the source as there is a need to cite sources within your business plan.

You may also want to complete a SWOT Analysis for your own business to identify your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and potential risks as this will help you develop your strategies to highlight your competitive advantage.

2. Strategize

Now, you will use the research to determine the best strategy for your business. You may choose to develop new strategies or refine existing strategies that have demonstrated success in the industry. Pulling the best practices of the industry provides a foundation, but then you should expand on the different activities that focus on your competitive advantage.

This step of the planning process may include formulating a vision for the company’s future, which can be done by conducting intensive customer interviews and understanding their motivations for purchasing goods and services of interest. Dig deeper into decisions on an appropriate marketing plan, operational processes to execute your plan, and human resources required for the first five years of the company’s life.

3. Calculate Your Financial Forecast

All of the activities you choose for your strategy come at some cost and, hopefully, lead to some revenues. Sketch out the financial situation by looking at whether you can expect revenues to cover all costs and leave room for profit in the long run.

Begin to insert your financial assumptions and startup costs into a financial model which can produce a first-year cash flow statement for you, giving you the best sense of the cash you will need on hand to fund your early operations.

A full set of financial statements provides the details about the company’s operations and performance, including its expenses and profits by accounting period (quarterly or year-to-date). Financial statements also provide a snapshot of the company’s current financial position, including its assets and liabilities.

This is one of the most valued aspects of any business plan as it provides a straightforward summary of what a company does with its money, or how it grows from initial investment to become profitable.

4. Draft Your Plan

With financials more or less settled and a strategy decided, it is time to draft through the narrative of each component of your business plan . With the background work you have completed, the drafting itself should be a relatively painless process.

If you have trouble writing convincing prose, this is a time to seek the help of an experienced business plan writer who can put together the plan from this point.

5. Revise & Proofread

Revisit the entire plan to look for any ideas or wording that may be confusing, redundant, or irrelevant to the points you are making within the plan. You may want to work with other management team members in your business who are familiar with the company’s operations or marketing plan in order to fine-tune the plan.

Finally, proofread thoroughly for spelling, grammar, and formatting, enlisting the help of others to act as additional sets of eyes. You may begin to experience burnout from working on the plan for so long and have a need to set it aside for a bit to look at it again with fresh eyes.

6. Nail the Business Plan Presentation

The presentation of the business plan should succinctly highlight the key points outlined above and include additional material that would be helpful to potential investors such as financial information, resumes of key employees, or samples of marketing materials. It can also be beneficial to provide a report on past sales or financial performance and what the business has done to bring it back into positive territory.

Business Planning Process Conclusion

Every entrepreneur dreams of the day their business becomes wildly successful.

But what does that really mean? How do you know whether your idea is worth pursuing?

And how do you stay motivated when things are not going as planned? The answers to these questions can be found in your business plan. This document helps entrepreneurs make better decisions and avoid common pitfalls along the way. ​

Business plans are dynamic documents that can be revised and presented to different audiences throughout the course of a company’s life. For example, a business may have one plan for its initial investment proposal, another which focuses more on milestones and objectives for the first several years in existence, and yet one more which is used specifically when raising funds.

Business plans are a critical first step for any company looking to attract investors or receive grant money, as they allow a new organization to better convey its potential and business goals to those able to provide financial resources.

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How to Streamline Your Approval Process and Save Time

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Do you often find yourself waiting for days or weeks to get approval for your projects, proposals, or documents? If you answered yes, then this blog post is for you.

In this post, we will explain what an approval process is, why it is important to have an efficient one, what are some common challenges that you may face, and how you can streamline your approval process flow and overcome those challenges. We will also share some strategies to handle complex approval processes, some best practices for formal approvals, and some additional tips and insights to help you improve your approval process. Finally, we will answer some frequently asked questions that you may have about approval processes.

What is an Approval Process?

Why is an efficient approval process important, common challenges in approval processes, approval process flow, strategies to manage complex approval processes, best practices for formal approvals.

An approval process is a series of steps that a document, project, proposal, or any other type of work has to go through before it is finalized and approved by the relevant stakeholders. It can involve different levels of authority, such as managers, directors, executives, clients, or external parties. An approval process can also vary in complexity, depending on the nature, scope, and impact of the work.

The approval process typically consists of the following stages:

Submission: The work is submitted by the creator or requester to the approver or approvers for review and feedback.

Review: The approver or approvers review the work and provide feedback, comments, suggestions, or revisions.

Revision: The creator or requester makes changes to the work based on the feedback received from the approver or approvers.

Resubmission: The revised work is resubmitted by the creator or requester to the approver or approvers for another round of review and feedback.

Approval: The approver or approvers approve the work and give their final sign-off.

Completion: The approved work is completed and delivered to the end-user or customer.

Approval Process Templates

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Saves time and resources: An efficient approval process reduces the number of revisions, resubmissions, and delays that can occur in a poorly managed approval process. This saves time and resources for both the creator or requester and the approver or approvers.

Improves quality and accuracy: An streamlined approval process ensures that the work meets the standards, expectations, and requirements of the approver or approvers. This improves the quality and accuracy of the work and reduces the risk of errors, mistakes, or rework.

Enhances collaboration and communication: It fosters collaboration and communication between the creator or requester and the approver or approvers. This enhances the understanding, alignment, and feedback between them and improves the outcome of the work.

Boosts productivity and performance: An efficient approval process boosts productivity and performance by enabling faster decision-making, smoother workflow, and better results. This increases customer satisfaction, employee engagement, and business growth.

Many organizations struggle with managing their approval processes effectively. Some of the common challenges that they face are:

Lack of clarity: There is no clear definition of who is responsible for approving what, when, how, and why. There are no clear criteria, guidelines, or standards for approving work. There are no clear expectations or goals for the work.

Lack of communication: There is no regular communication between the creator or requester and the approver or approvers. There is no feedback loop or mechanism for providing comments, suggestions, or revisions. There is no transparency or visibility into the status of the work.

Lack of consistency: There is no consistent process for submitting, reviewing, revising, resubmitting, and approving work. There are different processes for different types of work, different levels of authority, different departments, or different locations. There are frequent changes or exceptions to the process.

Lack of efficiency: There is too much bureaucracy, red tape, or micromanagement involved in the approval process. There are too many steps, layers, or people involved in the approval process. There are too many bottlenecks, delays, or backlogs in the approval process.

To overcome these challenges and streamline your approval process, you need to have a clear and consistent approval process flow that defines the following elements:

Roles and responsibilities: Who are the creators, requesters, approvers, and end-users involved in the approval process? What are their roles and responsibilities?

Criteria and standards: What are the criteria and standards for approving work? What are the quality, accuracy, compliance, and security requirements for the work?

Stages and steps: What are the stages and steps of the approval process? What are the actions, tasks, and deliverables for each stage and step?

Tools and systems: What are the tools and systems that support the approval process? What are the platforms, applications, or software that facilitate the submission, review, revision, resubmission, approval, and completion of the work?

Metrics and measures: What are the metrics and measures that monitor the approval process? What are the indicators, targets, or benchmarks that track the time, cost, quality, and satisfaction of the approval process?

Sometimes, you may have to deal with complex approval processes that involve multiple approvers, multiple documents, multiple revisions, or multiple dependencies. In such cases, you need to apply some strategies to manage your approval process effectively. Here are some of them:

Prioritize your work: Prioritize your work based on the urgency, importance, and impact of the work. Focus on the work that has the highest priority and the shortest deadline. Use a tool like a priority matrix or a Gantt chart to plan and schedule your work.

Communicate clearly: Communicate clearly with your approvers and other stakeholders about the scope, objectives, expectations, and requirements of the work. Use a tool like an email, a chat, or a video call to communicate regularly and effectively. Use a tool like a document management system or a cloud storage service to share and store your work.

Solicit feedback: Solicit feedback from your approvers and other stakeholders about the quality, accuracy, and completeness of the work. Use a tool like a comment feature or a markup tool to provide and receive feedback. Use a tool like a revision history or a version control system to track and manage your changes.

Automate your process: Automate your process as much as possible to reduce manual work, human errors, and delays. Use a tool like an online form or a template to submit your work. Use a tool like an approval workflow or a digital signature to approve your work. Use a tool like an email notification or a reminder to alert you about the status of your work.

Sometimes, you may have to deal with formal approvals that require legal, regulatory, or contractual compliance. In such cases, you need to follow some best practices to ensure that your approval process is valid, reliable, and secure. Here are some of them:

Document your process: Document your process in detail to provide evidence, accountability, and traceability of your approval process. Use a tool like a standard operating procedure (SOP) or a policy document to document your process. Use a tool like an audit trail or a log file to record your process.

Verify your identity: Verify your identity and the identity of your approvers and other stakeholders to ensure that they are authorized, qualified, and trustworthy to approve your work. Use a tool like an identity verification service or a biometric authentication system to verify your identity.

Protect your data: Protect your data and the data of your approvers and other stakeholders from unauthorized access, modification, or deletion. Use a tool like an encryption service or a firewall to protect your data. Use a tool like a backup service or a disaster recovery plan to recover your data.

An approval process is an essential part of any organization that deals with documents, projects, proposals, or any other type of work that requires review and feedback from others. An efficient approval process can save time and resources, improve quality and accuracy, enhance collaboration and communication, and boost productivity and performance.

However, many organizations face challenges in managing their approval processes effectively due to lack of clarity, communication, consistency, or efficiency. To streamline their approval processes, they need to have a clear and consistent approval process flow that defines the roles and responsibilities, criteria and standards, stages and steps, tools and systems, and metrics and measures of their approval process.

By following these tips, you can streamline your approval process and save time, improve quality, enhance collaboration, and boost productivity.

Join over thousands of organizations that use Creately to brainstorm, plan, analyze, and execute their projects successfully.

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How to Avoid Bottlenecks in Processes

Hansani has a background in journalism and marketing communications. She loves reading and writing about tech innovations. She enjoys writing poetry, travelling and photography.

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How to Keep the Approval Process from Bogging Your Project Down

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Nothing slows a project down quite like the approval process, amiright?

Your team can be trucking along full speed ahead. Next thing you know, your project hits a wall in stakeholder review. One stakeholder keeps sending new rounds of revisions while another hasn’t responded to any of your emails. 

And your timeline feels the crunch.

It happens to the best of us. But you don’t have to sit back and watch your project crash. 

Benjamin Franklin said, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” So why not apply that idea here? 

Here’s how to keep stakeholders on track and your project plan intact—and what to do if things go wrong anyway.

Why projects get stuck in review

You can’t get ahead of a problem if you don’t know what you’re dealing with. So let’s identify common reasons the approval process can go wrong. 

Any of these project bottlenecks sound familiar?

  • Stakeholders provide conflicting feedback.
  • There are too many reviewers with an unclear chain of approval.
  • Reviewers lose sight of the original project goals.
  • You end up in a never-ending cycle of revisions because scope and timing for review were left unclear.
  • A stakeholder misses an approval deadline.

How to prevent bottlenecks and keep the approval process on track

You’ve probably encountered every single one of these hold-ups in your projects—maybe even all at once. The good news is, you can absolutely take steps to keep your projects in check.

Here’s how it’s done. 💪

1. Establish a clear, streamlined process for feedback

It’s a lot harder to succeed if you don’t know what success looks like in the first place. So before you even start to write your plan, discuss review and approval with stakeholders, and let their input shape how the process will work. 

These tips can help you engage stakeholders in a productive conversation about the feedback process before a deliverable lands in their lap for review. 

Set parameters around review

Leaving scope wide open for the feedback process inevitably leads to more work, killing your project budget and timeline.

Be specific about how many days and rounds of revisions a review cycle includes. That way everyone’s on the same page about—and comfortable with—the scope you set together.

Try saying this: Usually I give 3 days for review in the timeline with 2 rounds of revisions. Can you do that?

Establish clear roles and responsibilities for reviewers

Want to avoid too many cooks in the kitchen with no one clearly calling the shots? Set clear roles and responsibilities for each deliverable before the project starts—and be prepared to reiterate this to keep people on task as work progresses. 

Use a RACI chart to document roles and responsibilities, and add this info to task notes in TeamGantt so it’s easy for your team and stakeholders to find at the task level.

business plan approval process

Discuss reviewer availability and backup on the front end

Stakeholders are busy folks, and you don’t want to send a deliverable for approval only to find out your stakeholder just left for a 2-week vacation. 

Talking about availability with stakeholders on the front end enables you to build your project schedule around their out-of-office time. It’s also a good idea to ask stakeholders to designate a backup reviewer so you won’t be left in the lurch if (and when) plans change. 

Determine how feedback will be delivered

A good process doesn't happen on its own. So work with your stakeholders to figure out how feedback will be collected and accepted. 

Things can get out of hand fast, especially if you’re working with a large stakeholder group. So do your best to channel feedback through a single stream to minimize confusion and help prevent unnecessary bog-downs brought on by free-for-all debates. We like using a shared document that’s written in one voice with a direct style so it’s easier to resolve conflicts and get to work more quickly. 

Here are a few ideas to help you keep feedback in check: 

  • Consolidate all edits and comments through one stakeholder. Ask stakeholders to designate one person to wrangle all their feedback and send it back in a format that’s actionable and easy-to-understand. This ensures feedback comes back to you in one consistent voice. It also pushes stakeholders to work out differences amongst each other so follow-up conversations and arguments don’t drag your timeline down. 
  • Set an approval meeting to get all reviewers talking in the same room. This tactic worked really well for a high-stakes project I worked on that required input from many busy stakeholders. It helped us come to content decisions more quickly as a team so I had a clear path forward for addressing feedback and securing final approval.
  • Use a collaborative document or tool to gather feedback. This makes it easier to keep tabs on version control. It doesn’t matter what tool you use, as long as stakeholders have easy access and clear guidelines for how, when, and why to use it. Watch the video below to see how team collaboration works in TeamGantt.

VIDEO - How to Collaborate in Your Project in TeamGantt

Just keep in mind that your process may look different for each project depending on what tools your stakeholders use, whether stakeholders are internal vs. external, and what stage your project’s at.

2. Build review and approvals into your plan

Now it’s time to formalize your process by putting tasks, dates, and assignments around it. Make sure tasks and milestones are spelled out really clearly so it’s easy to follow along when you present your plan to stakeholders .

Remember: Creating a project plan is only the beginning. You also need to talk about it. Highlight key approval milestones, and work with stakeholders to answer these questions:

  • Who should be involved at each stage of review?
  • Does the timing for review and approval work? 
  • How will we narrow down feedback and come to a decision?

Yes, you may have discussed all these things at the outset of the project. But things change, and stakeholders aren’t dialed into the project details like you are. 

Consider this a golden opportunity to check in on previous decisions and confirm they still make sense. After all, it’s always easier to adjust the plan before work gets underway. 

3. Proactively manage approval process and expectations

Once work begins, you’ll need to keep a close eye on how things are actually progressing and keep stakeholders in the loop along the way. 

You’re not doing your job as a project manager if you’re not continually iterating and reiterating what’s to come. And if stakeholders understand what’s expected of them and when, they can’t point the finger at you if they miss an approval deadline. 

We’re big fans of dropping hints and cues as gentle reminders along the way. It’s less about being a pest and all about setting your project and stakeholders up for success.

Your project plan and subsequent status reports are simple tools you can use to establish process and responsibilities every step of the way.

Project plan

Your project plan is a living, breathing document that will likely shift and evolve once work begins. So use it as a reference point to communicate progress to stakeholders as you work up to milestones.

For example, let’s say your team is almost ready to present work for review. Reach out to the stakeholder a couple of days in advance to review the timeline and confirm they can still deliver feedback on time. 

And because a plan is visual, it’s an easy way to show stakeholders how their approval impacts the entire project schedule.

Weekly status reports

A weekly status report is the perfect opportunity to give stakeholders a heads up about what’s coming down the project pipeline. 

When you talk through your status report, be sure to call out upcoming milestones, and ask stakeholders if they foresee any issues with their deadlines. If you’re concerned they won’t make it happen, be upfront about the risks of missing a deadline. 

Eliminate surprises by using this opportunity to give stakeholders a brief process refresher and review roles and responsibilities. 

What to do when a stakeholder misses a deadline

This is bound to happen at some point or another, and it’s difficult to resolve because you can’t really control stakeholders—especially if they happen to be paying clients. So what do you do when a stakeholder misses a deadline that will completely alter your timeline?

Here are 3 steps you can take to get your project back on track. 

1. Accept that it’s out of your control and not your fault

The truth is, humans are part of the project process, and you can’t control their actions 100%. If you’ve engaged stakeholders in the planning process and communicated expectations early and often, it’s not your fault if they don’t uphold their end of the bargain.

The best thing you can do at this point is accept the situation and move on to problem-solving mode. Even if the delay isn’t your fault, it’s your job as the project manager to address it. 

2. Use baselines to show the impact of delays

Showing how a delay affects your team’s timing and work helps stakeholders realize the impacts of their inaction. And, unfortunately, sometimes it takes one slip-up for people to get it.

This is where TeamGantt’s baseline feature comes in handy. For instance, if you set a baseline and then update your plan based on the new, extended deadline, you can show stakeholders how their missed deadline shifts your entire plan.

The video below shows you how baselines work in TeamGantt.

VIDEO - Create a Baseline in TeamGantt

3. Negotiate a change in your plan to make up for the delay

This is where the rubber meets the road. Take a look at the timeline, and offer solutions to minimize the project damage.

You might have to remove time from future review cycles, cut back on the project scope, or add more resources to the budget to meet the final deadline. Discuss alternate options with your stakeholders—and be honest about what’s possible—to ensure they understand the impact of the delay and are on board with the plan for moving forward.

It won’t be easy to sort out because the options are never ideal. Whatever you do, stand firm in the time you planned to execute the work—and reiterate the importance of that time to the quality of the project. 

Just know you can always work through any issue. And while your stakeholders might not end up 100% happy, you’re doing everything in your power to make up for lost time and keep the project on track.

Dive deeper to keep stakeholders on track and in your corner

Want even more tips and tools for managing stakeholder relationships? Check out our Guide to Managing Project Stakeholders .

Learn how to identify and map key stakeholders, and download 4 free templates to help you engage and manage stakeholders more effectively.

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The Definitive Guide to Approval Processes

Work often needs to be approved by managers and directors in every organization before it can formally begin or move to the next step. Approval processes are standardized within companies to dictate how the submitted work should be approved and rejected.

However, these processes are slow and filled with delays when they are not created and optimized accurately. While most organizations are starting to digitize approval processes, they still aren’t actively automating these processes, which can lead to decreased productivity and efficiency.

What is an approval process?

Approval-process-the-definit

An approval process is a type of   business process   that includes steps to formally approve work from different levels of the organization. The work can include budgets, invoices, project outlines, marketing initiatives, or any other items that need a series of approvals from different departments.

What is an Approval System?

An approval system is a structured process that helps an organization streamline any approval within a given workflow. An example of an approval system is the outlined step that concerns the approval of reimbursement .

What is approval management?

Approval management is the process component of a workflow that requires an approver (or supervisor) to authenticate and approve a step or task to push the request along the defined path. Approval management is key to ensuring increased transparency and accountability.

Approval Process Elements

A standard approval process has the following elements:

Submission documents

The submission documents can be anything that needs to be approved, whether its an invoice, a purchase quote, or any other internal document.

The approvers are the ones who decide whether the submitted documents should be approved or rejected. In case your process has various levels of approval, then it’s important to decide who approves the documents first.

Permission levels

To maintain security throughout the organization, it’s crucial to set different permission levels for each user so that you can control who can view, edit, reject, or approve the submitted documents.

Just like any other business process, approval processes should also have set deadlines so that they can be initiated and completed in a timely manner.

Recording every step of the approval process is just as important not only to maintain transparency throughout the organisation, but also to easily view and track all the actions in case of a discrepancy.

Examples of approval processes used by organizations

With the right approval processes in place, you can quickly review each deliverable and get approvals more quickly. The type of   approval process you create   will depend on the deliverables and the departments you are dealing with.

Let’s take a look at 4 approval process examples:

1. Invoices Approvals

Before approving an invoice, the accounting department needs to verify a series of parameters. In this case, the approval process can have a checklist that can be used to make sure all the necessary parameters including invoice number, price, date, and payment terms are reviewed before the invoice is cleared. The form may go through a workflow including the purchasing, finance, and those actually receiving the goods or services.

2. Budget Approvals

Managing operational budgets are an important part of the company's function. Once the budget proposal is completed, it needs to be vetted by a series of executives before being accepted and implemented. A budget approval involves passing the budget through various filters, departments, and approvers, making the appropriate changes, and ensuring the budget aligns with the objectives and demands of the organization.

3. Design Approvals

Design is probably the first thing customers notice when interacting with a brand. Marketing teams need to ensure their logos, graphics, ads, merchandise, and everything else is designed and packaged properly in accordance to the design standards and guidelines. A design approval encapsulates every stage a design goes through from initial drafting, change management, brand scrutiny, marketing approvals, and final management vetting.

This is a sophisticated process since every iteration requires the graphic designer to rework the product and reinitiate approvals.

4. Creative approvals

As compared to invoice approvals, creative approvals have a more complicated process. For instance, you may need multiple steps to include content writing, graphic designers, and web technicians, each with conditional approvals after the work is completed.

Workflows might also be dependent on:

  • The number of revisions that can be requested
  • The time limit on the revision period
  • The number of days it would take to deliver the designs

With these approval parameters in place, the designers can be assured that their workload won’t suddenly grow and they also wouldn’t have to worry about client responsiveness.

Benefits of automating your approval process

Manual approval processes   take a longer time to complete and they are also more prone to errors. On the other hand, automating approval processes can give you more control, transparency, and allow your team members to get approvals quickly.

Benefits of Automated Approval Processes

Some of the many benefits of automating approval processes include:

Custom templates : With built-in templates, you can easily   create new workflows   for the approval process by customizing those templates instead of designing one from scratch. This, in turn, allows you to save time and kickstart the approval process faster.

Editing capabilities : Once you have created a workflow for an approval process and you start using it, there might be some changes required to the parameters or the procedures that were initially in place. You can easily edit an existing automated approval process instead of creating a new one.

Better compliance and security : By automating approval processes, you are able to record every step of the process which can then be easily reviewed to check for compliances during internal audits. You are also able to maintain tighter security across the organisation, by only giving access to the approval documents to users who are involved in the process.

Seamless collaboration : For complex approval projects, monitoring every member’s actions and ensuring a proper flow of information can be an incredibly tedious task. Keeping track of the different levels of the approval process, updating different users involved, and adhering to deadlines can become a whole lot easier when the   processes are automated .

How to use approval for request management?

Approvals play an integral role in request management - by adding a layer of approval, decision-makers can keep an eye on quality as well as take contextual decisions on whether the request meets certain criteria, thereby triggering the request to go forward along the workflow path or backwards for additional action.

How to create an approval process in Kissflow

Kissflow is a   cloud-based business process   and   workflow management tool   that can help you automate approval processes in your organization in less than 15 minutes.

It’s a no-code application with intuitive drag and drop tools that allow you to   automate workflows   in the easiest way possible. It also offers heightened data security with role-based access, which means you can control who has access to the data.

You can create automated approval processes in Kissflow in just three steps:

Step 1: set up a form.

The first step is to create a form that includes all the parameters of your approval process. Kissflow Workflow allows users to add custom fields for attaching files, auto-populating data, tables, and much more.

Step 2: Create a workflow

The next step is to create a workflow for the approval process. This can be as simple as a one-step process that only involves your team manager, or it can include multiple levels of approval from different departments within the organization.

Step 3: Add approvers and submitters

The final step is to add all the people involved in the approval process so that they can submit, view, approve or reject documents. At this step, you can also decide which users are allowed to edit and modify the data.

Get to the finish

Workflow Approval Processes are a part of every organization’s day-to-day agenda, and by automating them through workflow management tools like Kissflow you can increase the productivity and efficiency of your team while seamlessly managing every process.

Try   Kissflow Workflow   for free today to customize and automate approval processes for your team easily.

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Workflow Automation

The complete guide to the approval process and workflow.

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approval process and workflow

Work at any organization comes with multiple approval steps. Sometimes, we need approvals even before the work begins! The approval process and workflow are also not limited to just one department. From HR to operations and everything in between, managers and directors must give approvals before taking something forward.

Sadly, manual approvals have been known to cause delays and lower efficiency. They are manual even in the best of organizations even today! Automating them would help to a large extent, but only a few companies are taking these steps. That’s probably because there’s some doubt about the benefits of automation and because organizations like sticking to old methods.

In this article, we shall discuss the approval process and workflow in detail, covering the important steps involved, examples, and benefits of automation . Let’s begin.

Also read: A Complete Guide to Workflow Automation Software

What is an Approval Process?

An approval process is a formal business process that comes into force at different levels in the workplace. For example, work outlines may need approval before execution, budget approval plans may need a nod from the manager, marketing initiatives cannot be taken forward before someone senior goes through them, and invoices cannot be paid before being crosschecked and verified.

In short, approval (or rejection) processes are part and parcel of the work-life.

Elements of an approval process and workflow

On the surface, the approval process seems simple, but quite a few steps are involved. In a standard approval process and workflow, you will see the following steps:

1. Approval request and supporting documents

Most approval requests are associated with one or the other document. This could be a marketing plan, budget plan, invoice, or something else. Anything that needs approval must be submitted as a document, which is why it is the first element in this process.

2. The approvers

It is usually the manager, but it may also involve the director, or the team leads, depending on the level of approval and the complexity of the document in question. Sometimes, there may be multiple levels of approvers. In this case, there must be clarity about the hierarchy. Who approves first? Or can approvals be done in parallel, like department approvals when an employee leaves the organization?

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3. The levels of permission for the approval process and workflow

Permission levels are nothing but the amount of control a person can have in the approval process and workflow. For example, maybe other team members can only view the document sent for approval without having access to edit, approve, or reject it. The manager may have the right to approve or reject, and Human Resource executives should be able to edit it. These permission levels are important for security and transparency. The permission may also be based on certain conditions, e.g., a team lead may be allowed to approve an expense for his team member up to $100, but any higher expense may need additional manager approval.

4. The approval logs

It is imperative to record every step involved in the entire approval process. This makes it easy to track and locate discrepancies. Understanding where the process is stuck and eliminating bottlenecks is also easier if there’s a record.

5. The due dates

Without due dates, approvals can take forever. Projects will then start late, and invoices won’t be paid on time. This is why it is a must to have deadlines for approvals at every step.

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Examples of the approval process and workflow

Let’s look at a few common approval process examples to understand the working of the entire process in different departments.

1. Invoice approvals

The accounting team needs to check the invoices and verify every parameter. A checklist can go a long way in ensuring that no parameter has been missed. In this case, the workflow includes finance, purchasing, and the ones on the ground actually making the purchase. The steps involved in invoice approvals are as follows:

  • Invoice submission (usually online)
  • Review to ensure it is compliant
  • Approval/rejection
  • Resubmission if rejected

2. Purchase order approvals

A purchase order is a document that the buyer sends to the seller. This document consists of all the details of the goods required and their respective prices. When a purchase order approval process is in place, it helps monitor the requests, manage the inventory, and log everything in one place. When sent, a purchase order is either approved immediately or returned because of the outstanding balance. Then the controller approves or rejects it based on set parameters. If it is not approved, the PO should be resubmitted after making the necessary changes.

3. Project plan and budget approvals

Every project goes through stringent approvals before coming on board, during, and after completion. Organizing budgets and resources can be very difficult without an approval process if there are multiple projects. A project approval and budget approval process will generally involve the following steps:

project plan and budget approval

  • Submitting the proposal
  • Estimating the costs
  • Prioritizing projects (in case there are multiple projects)
  • Evaluating the funding
  • Approvals/rejection

4. Content approvals

Content approvals include written work and other creative assets. There is always a level of approval before the content is published. Even in this content marketing workflow process , a few steps are involved that includes the assignment of the task, the writer being notified, submission of the first draft, reviews, editing, and submission of the final draft. After it is approved here, it is published.

5. Leave approvals

leave approval process flowchart

When an employee requests a leave, it goes to HR, the team lead, or the manager. The process is quite straightforward as it involves a request through email or an online portal, approval by HR, and then approval by the manager. You can see the leave approval process flowchart above. If a leave request is rejected, the following steps (whether to request again or to accept it) vary from one organization to the other.

Also read: Digital Transformation in HR

Benefits of automating the approval process and workflow

By now, we are sure you have realized that the approval process and workflow are quite tedious. It involves several steps, and missing any of them can hamper productivity. This is why automating the entire process can help businesses tremendously in the following ways:

1. It is safe and secure

Automation ensures that you record every single step. This makes the review process very easy. Plus, by controlling who gets access and the ability to edit/approve/reject, you maintain 100% security internally. This is crucial for every organization.

2. You have the freedom to create custom templates

When you automate approval processes, you will get built-in templates to use and customize as per your needs. You won’t need to design anything from the start, and you will save tremendous time in the process. The approval process will begin a lot faster than it used to.

3. You can edit!

After creating a workflow for the approval process and using it, you may need to edit a few aspects. Automation allows that! You won’t need to create a whole new form each time you want to add/remove a field or another approval step.

4. Everything is streamlined

If there is a complex approval process and workflow, it is very difficult to streamline. Sticking to deadlines is also difficult. Once it is automated, all levels of approval can be tracked, and the respective team members can be notified. The pipeline is smoother, and there is very little chance of missing deadlines. Every step is also clear and concise.

Also read: 20 reasons why going Paperless and shifting to Digital Forms will be a Major Trend in the near Future

5. There are mobile features

Many automation solutions have mobile capabilities. These include making requests, receiving notifications, approving work, etc., from the mobile phone!

6. You get to choose from notification templates

You get to decide how to notify the concerned person – through email, text, or both! There are in-app notifications and push notifications as well. Plus, you can determine the frequency of each notification.

7. It lets you collect data and signatures

A few approvals may need a signature. In these cases, you can choose a program that offers a signature collection as a feature. The same holds for feedback. If you don’t need approvals but just feedback, you can pick a solution to do exactly that.

Factors responsible for workflow completion

The completion of any approval process workflow depends upon certain factors. These factors are mentioned below:

1. Number of times the workflow was rejected. 2. Number of times re-assignments were done or revisions were asked for. 3. Number of days that might extend in case of any external disturbances.

Once these parameters are shared and discussed, they make workflow easier, and results can be assured on time.

Automation of the workflow approval process makes a tedious process easy and quick. This is why decision-makers must consider automation and enjoy the many benefits it showers upon the organization. Identify the areas in need of immediate attention, try our cutting-edge automation calculator today, and unlock the transformative power of automation!

Quixy is an innovative no-code platform that helps you automate the approval process and workflows in minutes without writing any code. Get started with our platform, and experience the ease of automated processes and personalized app building.

Frequently Asked Questions(FAQs)

What is the process of approval process.

An approval process is like a decision journey. It typically involves submitting a request, and routing it to relevant approvers, who review and make a decision. If approved, the process continues; if not, it may require revisions or further steps.

What is an example of an approval process workflow?

Imagine an expense approval process. An employee submits an expense report, which goes to their manager for approval. If the manager approves, it proceeds to finance for payment. If not, it’s sent back to the employee for revisions.

What is approval process actions?

Approval process actions include approving, rejecting, sending for revision, setting conditions, and defining the routing path for requests. These actions guide the process and determine its outcome.

What is the approval process for a project?

In project management, an approval process involves obtaining project stakeholders’ consent for project initiation, changes, or milestones. It ensures everyone is aligned with project decisions and progress.

What is approval rule?

An approval rule is like a decision criterion. It defines the conditions or criteria that must be met for an approval to be granted. For example, an approval rule might specify that expenses over a certain amount require senior management approval.

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Project Plan Approval Process – 5 Ways to an Efficient & Trackable Approval Management

project plan approval process

You have spent months preparing the project plan for this prestigious project that your team plans to undertake. The wait for project plan approval can be unnerving, especially when you do not have visibility into the opinion of management, clients, and other stakeholders. A streamlined project plan approval process gets your projects signed off faster and hassle-free. Approval for a project is usually provided by the team manager and top management. Read on to understand the project approval process, the best practices in project approval, and ways to streamline the project approval workflow. 

What is a Project Plan Approval Process?

A project plan approval process is during which decision-makers ensure that projects, invoices, budgets, and other processes that impact the organization’s financial status and stability are on par with the quality standards and requirements established by the organization. Approval for a project should be given only after a thorough review of the project plan. Project approval done in haste leads to disastrous outcomes that directly impact the business’s bottom line. 

A sound project plan approval strategy must apply consistent, value-based approval criteria and automated routing for project requests that impact an organization financially and strategically. The project management plan approval process is the last stage in project management and consists of the following steps – 

  • Deliverables reaching the final stage
  • Management, stakeholders, and/or clients performing a final review of the creative collaterals
  • Deliverables are either approved or reintroduced into the production loop

A set of structured steps that a project must go through before it can begin are part of the project approval workflow. The project plan is essentially a roadmap that ensures that the right projects are undertaken at the right time with the right resources. A well-defined project plan approval process mitigates the risks, enables better decision-making, and increases accountability.

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5 Steps in the Project Plan Approval Process

The project plan approval process involves obtaining approval from various stakeholders, hence, managing it can be tricky without a streamlined workflow. The project approval workflow can be broken down into 5 stages listed below – 

1. Project Initiation – This stage of the project is where the project’s scope, objectives, and requirements are defined. During the initiation stage, potential stakeholders and their needs and expectations are also assessed. 

2. Planning – Once the scope and objectives are clearly defined, the next stage is to develop a detailed project plan. The project plan must include timelines, budgets, and resource requirements of the project. This is also the step where risk management proposals are created and potential roadblocks are identified. 

3. Execution – Once the above steps are completed, implementation of the project plan can begin. 

4. Monitoring and control – Post implementation, it is important to ensure that the progress of the project is tracked. All the issues that arise while executing the project need to be handled during the monitoring and control phase. 

5. Closure – At the end of the project, you move on to reviewing the project results and outcomes. All the learnings during project execution need to be documented properly for future reference. 

It is important to remember that at each of these stages, it is important to obtain the necessary approvals before progressing to the next stage. For speedy and effective approvals, it is important to identify the stakeholders for approvals. The stakeholders must be provided with accurate and updated information so that they can review and approve the project plan quickly. 

Why Should You Streamline the Project Approval Process?

Why should you streamline the project approval process? Doing away with process redundancies is the main reason why an organization would go for streamlining key business processes. Nothing slows a project down like the approval process , right? 

Picture this – You have created a great project plan and your team is gearing up full steam for working on the project. The next thing you know is a roadblock – pending approval from stakeholders! One stakeholder keeps resending the project plan with several revisions, while the other stakeholder does not respond to any email. Your project deadlines are looming big on you! Been there?

Here are other reasons/scenarios where your project plan approval may reach a roadblock – 

  • Stakeholders providing conflicting feedback 
  • Too many reviewers with an unclear chain of approval
  • Reviewers are not clear about the original project goals 
  • Stakeholders miss approval deadlines
  • The project plan gets entangled in a never-ending cycle of revisions

You probably would have encountered some or all of these issues that hold up the project execution. You can take steps to keep your project plan approvals in check. The good news is that you don’t have to sit back and watch your project getting shelved, you can streamline the project approval process with the right workflow automation tool like Cflow. Streamlining the project plan approval process is a great way to accelerate the project execution. Here is how you can streamline the approval process.

Establish a clear, streamlined process for feedback – Even before you start to write your project plan, you need to discuss, review, and approvals with respective stakeholders, and let their inputs shape the working of the process. Gathering this data helps you engage stakeholders in a productive conversation about the feedback process before a deliverable lands up with them for review. 

Set the right parameters for review of the project plan – Having a wide scope for the feedback process leads to more work, which directly affects the project budget and timeline. 

You must specify how many days and rounds of revisions the review cycle should include. Setting clear parameters around approval ensures that everyone is on the same page. 

Set clear roles and responsibilities for each deliverable – Even before the project starts you need to establish clear roles and responsibilities for reviewers. Using the Gantt chart helps the team document roles and responsibilities. The availability of the reviewer and back up on the front end also need to be specified. Talking about availability with stakeholders on the front end enables you to build your project schedule around their out-of-office time. It is also good to ask stakeholders to designate a backup reviewer, so you won’t be left in the lurch when plans change. 

Determine how feedback will be delivered – You need to work with stakeholders to figure out how feedback will be collected and accepted. A single channel must be set for feedback to minimize confusion and prevent unnecessary bog-downs bought on by free-for-all debates. Consolidate all edits and comments through a single stakeholder. Designating one stakeholder for feedback and sharing it in a format that is easy to understand and actionable. Using a collaborative document tool enables easy access and clear guidelines. 

Build review and approvals into the project plan – It is time to formalize your process by designating tasks, dates, and assignments around it. Spelling out tasks and milestones makes it easy to present the plan to the stakeholders. Creating a project plan is only the beginning, highlighting key approval milestones, and working with stakeholders to understand project details are needed to build a solid review and approval plan. 

Manage approval process and expectations proactively – Once the project commences, you will have to closely monitor how things are progressing and keep stakeholders in the loop all through the process. Continuous iteration and reiteration of what is to come in the project are necessary to ensure that progress is aligned with the process goals and objectives. Documents like project plans and weekly status reports should be made an integral part of the project approval workflow. 

Benefits of a Streamlined Project Plan Approval Process

Having a well-thought-through project approval process brings several benefits to the organization. Some of the benefits include – 

1- Risk management – It helps reduce risks by ensuring that projects are aligned with business objectives and resources that are allocated for the project. In industries like healthcare or finance, where compliance is very important, having a clear project approval process ensures that all the tasks are accomplished as per business policies and standards. 

2- Better decision-making – A well-laid-out project plan provides a structured framework for evaluating projects, which in turn enables better decision-making. This standard framework makes sure that projects are assessed objectively based on pre-defined criteria. Decisions on which project to pursue and which to reject can be taken, based on the details in the project plan. 

3- Enhanced Accountability – The project approval process is streamlined when the roles and responsibilities and metrics for success are clearly defined. A clear definition ensures that everyone in the project understands their role and the project’s objectives. A well-defined project approval process makes it easy for the project to be delivered on time, within the budget, and as per the required quality standards. 

4- Improved collaboration – Active involvement of all the stakeholders is necessary from the beginning of the project. Ensuring that everyone in the project is involved and is aware of the status and progress, facilitates transparency and improves trust. 

Best Practices in Project Approval Process

It is not enough if we simply create a project approval workflow , we need to ensure that the workflow is streamlined and delivers optimal results. We have put together 5 best practices in the project approval process so that expected outcomes are delivered each time. 

Clear definition of project scope and objectives – The most important condition for the project plan to get approved is that it has a clear definition of what the project intends to accomplish. A project plan that clearly defines the intent and scope of the project helps stakeholders easily understand what the project is for. While defining the objectives, it is important to identify and involve all the stakeholders that are impacted by the project. Stakeholders are usually the team members, customers, partners, and regulators. Involving all these stakeholders ensures that the project aligns with their needs and requirements. 

Develop a detailed plan – The more detailed the project plan is, the better the chances that it will get approved. The project plan must outline all the tasks, timelines, and dependencies, for getting the plan approval. The scope of the plan must be comprehensive to include all aspects, right from initial scoping to delivery. 

Establish a clear approval process – Establishing a clear and transparent approval hierarchy is very important to ensure that there are no bottlenecks in the workflow. Clarity of who is responsible for what is essential to avoid any confusion or overlooks during approval. You must establish – 

  • What documentation is needed
  • Who has the authority to approve the project at each stage
  • How will feedback be incorporated into the workflow

Establish a clear line of communication – Effective communication is essential for any process to operate without any bottlenecks. Especially in approval-based processes, a clear communication line ensures that approvals do not fall through the cracks. Make sure that communication throughout the project approval process is established at the beginning itself. Stakeholders must be updated on the progress of every stage of the process. Progress, milestones, and any changes to the project plan or scope must be documented and communicated to the stakeholders.

Track the progress – In some projects, approvals are needed at every stage of the workflow, while for others, sign-off/approval might be required only at the beginning and end stages of the project. Nevertheless, it is important to monitor the progress of the process at all times so that we can ensure that the project is on track and aligned with objectives. In addition to tracking the progress of the process, the stakeholders must be provided with relevant reports on the progress. Regular monitoring and reporting ensure that any issues or digressing can be promptly identified and resolved.

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Build fully-customizable, no code process workflows in a jiffy., automating the project plan approval.

We have talked in depth about the need for streamlining the project approval workflow, but how do we accomplish that? The best practices in the project plan approval process can be implemented by automating specific steps in the process. What does process automation do to the approval process? For starters, it eliminates redundant steps and automates repetitive, low-value tasks that eat up productive project hours. Redundancies in any process flow cause bottlenecks and delays. To get rid of such issues, it is important to automate tasks that are data-intensive and tedious. 

How do you go about automating the project approval process? Here are a few tips that will ease out project approval process automation. 

Specify project approval requirements – Identify the most frequented project types that your team works on that require approval from higher-ups. When you have this figured out, it becomes easy to look for the right automation solution that takes care of the requirements of your project. 

Choose a powerful project approval tool – A solid project approval plan must be supported by the right approval automation tool. A capable project approval tool can drive up to 50% time savings in project approvals. The tool must be easy to use and understand, must provide real-time updates on request statuses, integrate the tool with existing business apps must be simple and seamless. Cflow is a no-code BPM tool that fits the bill perfectly for a feature-rich workflow automation tool with advanced automation features.

Ensure that stakeholders are kept in the loop – The approval automation tool must enable seamless collaboration between stakeholders to ensure that all of them are on the same page. 

Share assets for review and approval – Sharing assets and documents for review and approval is greatly simplified when you use automation software. This is a must-have feature that ensures that all the relevant assets are shared with the respective stakeholder for review and approval. Sharing of thoughts, comments, and feedback is a must during the review process. 

Integrate the feedback and resolve comments – The comments/feedback received from the reviewer must be implemented and marked as “resolved”. Once all the comments are resolved, the request can be resubmitted to the reviewer for final approval. 

Top 5 Project Approval Tools

To make it easy for you to choose the right approval automation software, we have curated a list of the top 5 tools for 2023. 

  • Cflow – No code workflow automation too l for all types of approval workflows
  • Monday – Structured project management and workflow automation software
  • Nintex – Custom project workflow creation software for teams of any size
  • Wrike – Low code automation for the task and project-level assignments
  • MarkUp.io – Best tool for workflows that include proofing, review, and/or approval

The more efficient your project plan approval process, the lesser time spent on mundane activities. Cflow brings powerful automation features to the project approval workflow, so you end up spending more time on productive project work rather than boring reviews and validations. Sign up for the free trial to see Cflow in action.

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The Importance of a Deal Approval Workflow (and How to Create One)

Sales teams are at the core of almost every organization. From prospecting to sending, their efforts throughout the sales cycle are crucial in generating revenue and business growth. But to prevent costly errors from popping up, their work often hinges on sign offs from various stakeholders along the way. While approvals are great for compliance, they can cause major bottlenecks that can doom deals. In an environment where speed and time are of the essence, a smooth approval workflow process is invaluable. Here’s how to create one.

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6 min. read

What is an approval workflow?

An approval workflow is a formal process that details an organization's approach to approving documents or data. In a sales context, it's the way your team handles the sign offs of various documents throughout the sales cycle. It ensures that the appropriate people are able to view and approve necessary sales documents efficiently so that reps can focus more on building relationships and less on chasing down internal approvals. Done right, a well-oiled approval workflow process will get deals out the door sooner and help you build sales momentum.

Types of approval workflows

Approvals are necessary throughout the entire sales process, but blanket document approvals are rarely efficient. With the right sales document approval software, you can delegate roles and permissions so that reviewers are only presented with documents that require their sign off, so that they can avoid wasting time on small details.

Lead management. A lead management approval workflow allows team leaders to verify and sign off on leads so that sales reps spend less time and energy chasing unqualified prospects .

Quotation. Getting accurate quotes to prospects shouldn’t be hard. With a quotation approval workflow, sales reps can delegate approval permissions to team leads, product teams, or operations to ensure pricing is accurate and in line with business needs.

Document value. There are times when deals below a certain size don't even need approval. A document value approval process gives reviewers the option to choose which documents they want to review based on value so that teams can spend less time on approvals.

Discount. Pricing discounts can help seal the deal, but every discount comes at a cost to your business. A discount approval workflow allows reps to request approvals for discounts based on value so that you can avoid discounting errors that eat into your profit.

Terms & Conditions. Deal terms set the stage for your projects and contracts, so they need to be rock solid. With a terms and conditions approval workflow, team leads can make sure that there are no last minute adjustments or mistakes before they’re sent off to the client.

Common approval workflow obstacles

Without a formal process, sales teams face a number of approval workflow obstacles that can put deals at risk:

Bottlenecks

A poorly-designed approval workflow process creates giant bottlenecks for sales reps as they wait for document approval. There are plenty of documents that can go out without approval, but without a formal approval process, reps are stuck waiting for sign off on all documents before they can move forward. This slows their deals to a halt and puts additional burden on the reviewer, who might not even have access to the document if they're away from their computer.

Errors and omissions

As time-consuming as document approval workflows may be, they’re necessary. Without them, materials can go out with mistakes in pricing, discounts, terms & conditions, deliverables, and other costly business proposal errors . An approval process is necessary to ensure that all documents are accurate and up to date before being sent to prospects or clients.

Disorganization

A lack of an approval process leads to a lack of organization. Without clear steps that outline how documents are circulated, reviewed, and approved internally, there is greater potential for delayed, forgotten, or incorrect materials. It’s not a good feeling to lose a deal because the approval request was buried in a manager’s inbox.

Lack of transparency

An audit trail can help you understand where approvals are getting hung up and who is accountable for what throughout the pipeline. But without a formal approval process and the right proposal tools , there is a severe lack of transparency that prevents you from getting the insight you need.

How to create an efficient approval workflow process

An approval workflow process can be as simple or as complex as you make it. But regardless of your approach, every approval workflow should fulfill two purposes: maintain accuracy across all sales documents , and ensure that all documents are reviewed and approved efficiently to avoid impeding the sales process.

1. Create the sales documents

Using everything we’ve taught you about how to write a business proposal , create the proposal or other sales documents to build your approval process around.

2. Establish responsibilities

Identify the person (or people) who approve the documents and which aspects they are responsible for. Identify what is needed from each stakeholder before the document can move to the next step of the sales process.

3. Set permissions

Define the level of authority each user should have. By designating users as viewers, editors, or administrators, you can control who is able to edit, reject, or approve documents and ensure that the right team members have the visibility and access they need.

4. Create a timeline

Identify any relevant deadlines associated with the sales documents. This will help you set expectations and keep your workflows moving to prevent backlogs for both reps and managers.

5. Set up alerts and notifications

Automated alerts and notifications can help you track the status of your sales documents through the entire sales pipeline. Choose when alerts are sent out (i.e. approvals, rejections, update requests, status updates, etc.) and to whom.

6. Document and communicate

With the right tools -- like Proposify -- you can view document and user history throughout every step of the approval process. This can help you identify and address problem areas in order to expedite your workflow.

Benefits of streamlined approval workflows

With a streamlined approval process, your team will be well-equipped to pump out consistent, accurate sales documents without getting hung up on the little details or cutting corners to seal the deal.

Consistency

No more wondering where to send documents for approval or bouncing them around multiple departments until they get signed. A formal approval process means that the sales workflow looks the same every time. Plus, you can set thresholds for adjustments to ensure that documents don’t differ significantly between clients.

With set roles and responsibilities, all essential decision makers see and sign off on documents before they’re sent. This ensures that multiple stakeholders can verify information for accuracy, which leaves much less room for error or omissions.

Streamlined approval workflows make sign-off easy by ensuring that decision makers can review and approve relevant documents effectively. Instead of requiring approval for all documents, managers can choose what they need to approve so that they can focus only on the details that matter.

And with notifications, alerts, and mobile accessibility , reviewers have the power to access documents instantly and approve on the go. No more waiting around for managers to get back to their desk or hoping that the document isn’t stuck in their backlog.

Transparency

Say goodbye to the black box in your sales process . With streamlined approval workflows, you’ll have insight into the entire pipeline so that you can determine what’s working and what’s not. Complex approval details can help you hold teams accountable and reduce roadblocks so that your sales process runs smoothly.

Approvals are a necessary part of any effective sales cycle, but they can really slow down the process. The right proposal software will allow you to streamline your approval workflow process to reduce bottlenecks while maintaining consistency and increasing transparency along the way. Plus, the increase in efficiency can help you cut down on your proposal time so that you can focus on building relationships with your clients.

a simplified sales workflow

Why You Need to Simplify Your Sales Doc Workflow

January 07, 2020

Efficiency in your proposal process

How Proposal Software Can Help Save Time and Increase Efficiency

June 08, 2021

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About 10 mins

Learning Objectives

Get started with approvals, build an approval process, preplanning.

  • Challenge +100 points

Customize How Records Get Approved

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

  • Define an approval process, and list its key components.
  • Plan the automation of a business process using an approval process.

An approval process automates how Salesforce records are approved in your org. In an approval process, you specify:

  • The steps necessary for a record to be approved and who approves it at each step. For example, when an employee creates a time-off request, have Salesforce automatically send an approval request to the employee’s manager.
  • The actions to take based on what happens during the approval process. For example, if a time-off request is approved, update fields on the employee’s record. But if the request is rejected, send a notification to the employee.

Let’s look at an example approval process to see how a record moves through various steps of the process. In this example, a user submits a request for a new position in a company.

Chart that shows an example approval process

When a user first requests approval for a new position, initial submission actions occur. The default initial submission action locks the record. This action ensures that other users (except for approvers and admins) can’t change the record while it's pending approval. Other possible submission actions include sending an email alert, updating a field on a record, creating a task, and sending an outbound message.

Approval steps assign approval requests to various users and define the chain of approval for a particular approval process. In this example, the first step assigns the approval request to the submitter's direct manager.

If the direct manager rejects the request, the final rejection actions are executed, setting the position’s approval status to Rejected .

If the direct manager approves the request, the record moves to the next step—approval from the CEO. If the CEO rejects the position, the same final rejection actions occur.

If the CEO approves the position, final approval actions are executed. They set the approval status to Approved , unlock the record for future updates, and notify the employee who requested the new position.

Final approval actions occur only when a record is approved and there are no further approval steps.

Now that you’ve seen the basic outline of an approval process, let’s get your hands dirty. You need to make sure that a manager approves opportunities that are discounted more than 40%. The opportunity should reflect its approval status: Approved or Not Approved.

Plan out your business process before you try to automate it. Doing so makes it much easier to configure when using one of our automation tools.

Before we dive in, let’s come up with a plan.

We're simplifying this scenario for the purposes of this challenge. In the real world, one can use the standard discount field on an opportunity product and then use a roll-up summary field to add that value to the opportunity record.

  • Documentation: Prepare to Create an Approval Process
  • Documentation: Limits and Considerations for Approvals
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Business approvals templates overview (preview)

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[This topic is prerelease documentation and is subject to change.]

Approvals are a key use case present across every industry, organization, and department. Use Power Automate to streamline your business processes by digitalizing the approvals experience.

  • This is a preview feature.
  • Preview features aren’t meant for production use and may have restricted functionality. These features are available before an official release so that customers can get early access and provide feedback.
  • This feature is being gradually rolled out across regions and might not be available in your region.

Business approvals templates as part of the approvals kit provide no-code templates that are built on top of Microsoft Power Platform components. Use these templates to accelerate the speed at which your organization creates sophisticated approvals workflows that include conditional branching, delegation, administrative overrides, and more. Since the templates are no-code, almost anyone in your organization can use them to meet your approval needs.

A screenshot of the Business Approvals Process Manager with the Designer view selected and a process flow displayed.

Organizations often need approvals for key business processes. These processes might include expense reporting, time sheet management, business travel requests, procurement orders and sales discounts.

With Power Platform, you can automate approvals needs by combining components from Power Apps and Power Automate . As the complexity of your approvals increases, so does your configuration and need to assemble multiple low code components together. The business approvals templates are available with as a configured collection of components and tools that are designed to help organizations automate their approvals processes quickly.

These templates cover many of the typical requirements in most organizations, such as the ability to:

  • Configure multi-stage approvals
  • Delegate others to approve
  • View approvals progress and history
  • Manage out of office for approvers
  • Support for versions of approval process
  • Publish version approval workflow
  • Handle of work days and public holidays

Depending on your role in the organization, you may need an assigned Microsoft 365 license and a Premium Power Platform license to design, store, and run the cloud services related to the business approvals template. Refer to the setup guide for specific license requirements.

Although the underlying features and components used to build the kit (such as Dataverse, Power Apps, Power Automate and connectors) are fully supported, the kit itself which is managed by Power CAT represents sample implementations of these features. Our customers and community can use and customize these features to implement approvals workflows in their organizations.

If you face issues with:

Using the kit: Report your issue on the Power CAT Business Approvals Kit forum. Microsoft Support won't help you with issues related to this kit, but they'll help with related, underlying platform and feature issues.

The core features in Microsoft Power Platform: Use your standard channel to contact Support.

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Managing the business travel approval process: five things to keep in mind

1. consult all relevant business travel stakeholders.

  • Administrators: An office travel manager or executive assistant in charge of booking business travel
  • Line managers: The manager of the person going on the business trip
  • Executives: Additional managers at the director or C-suite level
  • Finance: A representative from the finance department who handles business travel (from the perspective of travel costs)
  • HR: A representative from the HR department who handles business travel (from the engagement or compliance perspective)

Ebook

Learn how to write a comprehensive business travel policy with our ebook.

2. create an organized business travel approval process.

  • Who’s in charge of booking business travel? Employees, managers, an administrative assistant?
  • Do travelers need to fill out a request form?
  • What "approvers" need to be consulted for corporate travel approval?
  • How does spending work when on a business trip? Who sets and controls the budget?
  • How much advance notice is needed to approve a business trip?
  • What happens if there’s a last-minute business travel request?
  • Are only certain types of hotels, flights, etc. approved for travel booking? For example, can a traveler book a three-star or four-star hotel?
  • Is there a certain cabin class allowed for flights (first, business, economy?)

Here's how travel policies are seamlessly integrated in TravelPerk

3. manage things all in one place during the approval process, 4. communicate the business travel approval process to people in your company, 5. automate your business travel approval process where possible, bonus: using travelperk for your business travel approval process, did you find this article useful, speak to a travel expert.

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Process Street

Procurement Management Plan Template

Identify procurement needs and requirements, identify potential suppliers.

  • 1 Price competitiveness
  • 2 Product quality
  • 3 Supplier reputation
  • 4 Delivery capabilities
  • 5 Customer service

Preparation of a procurement plan

Approval: procurement plan.

  • Preparation of a procurement plan Will be submitted

Developing Request for Proposal (RFP) or Request for Quotation (RFQ)

  • 1 Supplier must be ISO certified
  • 2 Supplier must have at least 5 years of experience
  • 3 Supplier must provide references

Distribute RFQ/RFP to identified suppliers

  • 2 Physical copies
  • 3 Online platforms

Evaluate suppliers bids

  • 3 Delivery time
  • 4 Supplier's track record

Approval: Supplier Selection

  • Evaluate suppliers bids Will be submitted

Negotiate with selected supplier

Prepare and sign contract with supplier.

  • 1 Compliance with local laws
  • 2 Intellectual property rights protection
  • 3 Confidentiality agreement

Approval: Contract

  • Negotiate with selected supplier Will be submitted
  • Prepare and sign contract with supplier Will be submitted

Oversee delivery and installation if necessary

Inspect goods/services to ensure requirements are met.

  • 1 Visual inspection
  • 2 Functional testing
  • 3 Sample analysis

Approval: Goods/Services Inspection

  • Inspect goods/services to ensure requirements are met Will be submitted

Process supplier invoices and manage payments

Take control of your workflows today., more templates like this.

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Creating the perfect travel request approval process.

Sajit Chacko

Sajit Chacko

Tripeur Travel Desk

Unfortunately, a persistent problem facing many with such aspirations is that they often find themselves in situations where the trips become a tiresome burden with exponentially higher costs than expected. 

Why is this, you wonder? Simply put, the chaotic, frustrating, and challenging task of working with outdated spreadsheet-based systems makes business travel nightmarish every step of the way. 

This problem is especially true for the archaic travel approval process, which makes trips unmanageable and unfeasible. We are here to tell the readers they don’t need to be.

This article will explore the travel request approval process, the challenges organizations face using older processes, and how creating a clear, automated workflow can help overcome these challenges. By the end of this article, you will understand why creating an ideal travel request approval workflow is essential to succeed in today’s competitive business environment.

What is a travel request approval process?

A travel request approval process is a series of actions that an employee or traveler follows to acquire management consent to implement a trip. 

This process typically begins with the employee filling out a travel request form outlining the trip’s details, including the destination, purpose, dates, and estimated expenses. 

The employee then forwards the request to the assigned administrative authorities and stakeholders through outdated methods of communication, such as email, for review. The review process involves managers and admins checking compliance with travel policies, estimating trip feasibility, verifying budget availability, and obtaining approvals from the other relevant organizational stakeholders. 

Based on such considerations, the request is either sanctioned or denied. Once approved, the employee can purchase flight tickets, reserve accommodations, and perform other necessary tasks to carry out the trip.

Why do you need a travel request approval workflow?

A travel request approval workflow is an excellent way to simplify the outdated, inefficient, and problematic process that most businesses continue to follow even today. A streamlined workflow ensures compliance with the corporate travel policy, improves planning efficiency, regulates costs, enhances communication, and increases security. 

Moreover, implementing one further ensures that travel expenses are quickly approved, transparent, and well-planned. 

Here are some of the real-world problems several businesses face which necessitate a systematic travel request approval workflow.

Limited control over expenses

Proper internal controls make it easier for businesses to track trip expenses, maintain compliance, and impose spending constraints. The main problem behind the manual travel request process is that it fails to establish such controls for employee expenses, causing widespread policy non-compliance and overspending. 

The situation worsens when too many stakeholders are involved in the decision-making process. When this happens, it becomes a challenge to manage or keep track of the approved expenses, often resulting in travelers exceeding their allotted budgets. 

On the other hand, a travel request approval workflow provides travelers with a framework that helps them stay compliant and within their budgetary limitations throughout the travel process. 

The ideal workflow should enhance the business’s expense controls while leaving no room for misinformation or miscommunication. Even when the business trip involves multiple travelers, an excellent workflow allows consistent policy compliance and expense transparency between the travelers and their respective departmental heads, managers, and admins.

Key information doesn’t reach the right people

When using manual systems, employees regularly encounter numerous roadblocks between them and acquiring the necessary travel permissions. This situation is especially true when requests are sent to an unnecessarily large number of stakeholders regardless of their role or relevance in the travel request process. 

There are bound to be information gaps, miscommunication, errors, and delays when this occurs. And critical information sometimes does not reach crucial decision-makers on time, considerably slowing down the process. 

Moreover, manual systems make it nearly impossible for travelers to make quick, time-sensitive decisions that could drive down trip costs. 

Instead, an automated travel request workflow system can guarantee that critical travel proposals and information is sent only to those with the utmost relevance to the nature of the proposal. 

This way, essential stakeholders are routinely kept informed and updated on the decision-making process. Such a level of transparency dramatically improves communication and reduces the risk of misunderstandings. 

By assigning priority levels to requests, you also ensure that administrators get instantly notified and attend to critical requests without delays. 

Manual processes are inefficient

Implementing and managing business trips through manual processes is a tedious task with several redundancies that causes delays and human error. 

Here, the time it takes for the itinerary, travel costs, trip expenses, and relevant justifications to be approved generally takes several days or weeks to get accepted. By this time, trip costs may dramatically escalate. 

On the other hand, an automated travel request approval workflow can significantly reduce the time to process such requests from days to mere minutes. Additionally, since the requests only reach the relevant stakeholders, there will be no misinformation and confusion, ensuring enhanced compliance. 

An added advantage to an automated travel request system is mobile functionality that allows requests to be sent directly to the mobile device of the relevant authority, along with automated expense reports. 

How to create the ideal travel request approval workflow

Let us walk through the steps you must take to create the perfect travel request approval workflow.

1. Understand what you want to achieve 

A good practice before you design a travel request approval workflow is first to analyze your current processes and the challenges you face with them. This analysis helps you identify problematic errors, redundancies, inefficiencies, and other significant issues in your workflow. 

Once you identify these issues, you will better understand what components need to be cut, reworked, excluded, and improved. This way, you can eliminate any problems disrupting your travel implementation process and feasibility. 

When you have ample information on what’s wrong, you can envision how your new travel request approval workflow should be and what it must help you achieve. 

A noteworthy recommendation is to automate, rework, and improve your existing systems rather than a complete system rehaul. Enhancing and automating existing systems facilitates familiarity, resulting in lesser adoption resistance from your employees. 

The ultimate goal should be to plan a workflow that dramatically improves time management, efficiency, transparency, and visibility when filling, submitting, and handling travel requests.

2. Consult all relevant business travel stakeholders

business plan approval process

Manual processes generally require the proposal to be approved by administrators, managers, C-suites, finance teams, and the HR department before its implementation. Each of these departments has team members, further expanding the proposal’s organizational exposure. 

The first step to creating a workflow perfect for your unique business requirements is identifying the stakeholders relevant to the travel-decision making process. A good practice is to restrict the number of administrators charged with viewing and scrutinizing the requests and their contents to the lowest number possible. 

Modern automated systems provide stakeholders with excellent internal controls on expenses and approvals while increasing their overall visibility. In such a system, there is no need to involve more than a few stakeholders. 

The number of administrators entirely depends on the organization’s size. Smaller organizations may need lesser administrators and decision-makers involved in the travel request approval process. On the other hand, larger organizations generally have more travelers than SMEs and a higher volume of requests and expenses that require administrative attention. 

Factor in these considerations and decide the optimal number of stakeholders to review trip requests. Remember, the number should be manageable for the administrator or manager.

3. Map out the travel request approval workflow

The next stage is automating and mapping the proposals’ flow for your new travel request approval workflow. Ideally, this should involve requests to flow through stakeholders relevant to trip planning and with expertise in improving the trip’s productivity. 

This map should specify each member’s role in the newly automated process.

4. Setup a single management tool for easy access

business plan approval process

The first thing you should do for your new workflow is to restructure your processes to eliminate redundancies from the previous systems, including redundant communication channels or any other aspect that may confuse stakeholders. 

Once you have centralized and organized your business travel approval process, you must increase the corporate travel policy’s visibility to reach all stakeholders. Doing so ensures that all employees are completely aware of the policies, procedures, rules, and limitations. 

The goal of this stage is to ensure that there are no more delays or back-and-forth communications between travel and non-travel stakeholders. A centralized travel management tool such as Tripeur can help businesses effectively achieve this quickly. 

5. Choose which line items to include

Carefully planning and detailing the workflow’s line items allows you to specify to your employees what travel details require mentioning and what is irrelevant. Such a practice guarantees uniformity between all travelers filling out and submitting requests. Everyone involved in trip planning provides managers and administrators with all the relevant details. 

Typical line items to consider in your travel request approval workflow include the trip’s purpose, assignment details, location, duration, and list of participating team members. It is also good practice to detail a breakdown of the estimated costs, including airfare, accommodations, ground transport, meals, and the overall total. 

How detailed you want these forms depend entirely on the level of granular supervision you wish to maintain. 

Specifying that your employees upload receipts online after a transaction is also essential to automate expense reconciliation. This practice eliminates needing to maintain, carry, store, and submit physical receipts. 

An automated system enables businesses to achieve this with ease. Such systems also allow companies to finetune the workflow by adding and removing fields to suit a business’s unique requirements.

6. Communicate the travel request approval process with your employees

For your new travel request approval process to work, it must first be communicated transparently to your stakeholders. Maintain a single uniform communication channel and make it the primary mode of inter-office communications. 

By doing so, you guarantee that your new travel request approval process promptly reaches all relevant parties detailing what is expected of them at every stage of the refined process.

7. Implement a travel request approval workflow and continuously tweak it

business plan approval process

Your first attempt at creating a travel request approval workflow may not yield the best results. This is normal, as it is an iterative process with plenty of room for improvement. Perfecting your new approval process requires periodic performance reviews to spot redundancies, missing items, and other erroneous processes to improve your workflow routinely. 

Once you do this, place internal controls for stakeholders and clearly define their access levels. The goal here is to allow access to only the relevant stakeholders for every travel step of the travel process. Also, restrict access to information from stakeholders irrelevant to the approval process.

Once the controls are in place, test the approval process to identify and mitigate any lingering issues. Carefully test and monitor the new approval process for a predefined trial period till you iron out all the kinks. A good recommendation is to automate the system, which is an excellent way to increase your new system’s efficiency and speed tremendously. 

In conclusion, you should be ready to create your travel request approval workflow to improve compliance, control costs, increase efficiency & accuracy, streamline communication, and enhance security. If you need clarification on how to do this, don’t worry. 

You can consult a professional service provider that can do it for you at a fraction of what you would have to spend to implement one in-house. 

Simplify and implement the travel request approval workflow with Tripeur

Think of Tripeur’s platform as the swiss army knife of corporate travel, where every tool you need for corporate travel management is available to you within one platform. Sometimes, no amount of workforce or capital can improve an outdated and broken travel approval system. 

Instead, Tripeur and its expense module helps keeps the finance department in the loop by sending stakeholders automated expenditure alerts and reports through all stages of the travel booking experience. Our travel request approval process will ensure it keeps all relevant stakeholders informed and involved in the decision-making process, improving communication and reducing the risk of misunderstandings.

Better yet, our system supports e-receipts and automated reconciliation to help you create a seamless experience for travelers and other stakeholders. We provide you with all the tools necessary to develop a standardized process for examining if travel expenses align with its policies and regulatory requirements. 

With such a granular level of control, you will only authorize travel requests that comply with your organizational policies.

Our user-friendly software can tremendously simplify and improve your travel proposals system, where every approval will be instantaneously sent to the mobile devices of the right stakeholders. We can help you perpetually fix your corporate travel inefficiencies and simplify and implement travel request approval workflow while significantly lowering costs. 

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Home > Finance > How Long Do SBA Loans Take To Process?

How Long Do SBA Loans Take To Process?

How Long Do SBA Loans Take To Process?

Published: February 17, 2024

Learn about the processing time for SBA loans in finance. Understand the timeline for approval and funding to make informed decisions.

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Table of Contents

Understanding the timelines for processing sba loans, understanding sba loans, factors affecting sba loan processing time, typical timeline for sba loan processing, tips for expediting sba loan processing.

Introduction

SBA loans are renowned for providing crucial financial support to small businesses, offering low-interest rates and flexible terms. However, the timeline for processing these loans can vary significantly, impacting the ability of businesses to access much-needed funds. In this comprehensive guide, we will delve into the intricacies of SBA loan processing times, shedding light on the factors that influence these timelines and providing valuable insights to expedite the process.

Navigating the labyrinth of SBA loan processing can be a daunting task for business owners, especially when time is of the essence. By gaining a deeper understanding of the key components affecting the processing timelines, entrepreneurs can make informed decisions and take proactive measures to streamline the application process. Whether you're a seasoned business owner or a budding entrepreneur, this guide aims to demystify the complexities surrounding SBA loan processing, empowering you to navigate the process with confidence and clarity.

Throughout this article, we will explore the typical timeline for SBA loan processing, dissect the factors that can accelerate or impede the process, and provide actionable tips to expedite the approval timeline. By the end of this guide, you will possess a comprehensive understanding of SBA loan processing timelines, equipping you with the knowledge to navigate the intricate terrain of small business financing with finesse.

Join us on this enlightening journey as we unravel the mysteries of SBA loan processing, empowering you to make informed decisions and propel your business towards sustainable growth and success.

Small Business Administration (SBA) loans play a pivotal role in fostering the growth and sustainability of small businesses across the United States. These loans are designed to provide affordable financing options to entrepreneurs, enabling them to launch, expand, or stabilize their ventures. The SBA does not directly disburse loans; instead, it guarantees a portion of the loan amount, mitigating the risk for lenders and making it easier for small businesses to access funding.

One of the key attractions of SBA loans is the favorable terms they offer, including lower down payments, longer repayment periods, and competitive interest rates. This makes SBA loans an appealing choice for businesses seeking capital without burdening themselves with exorbitant debt obligations.

There are several types of SBA loans tailored to meet the diverse needs of small businesses, such as 7(a) loans, CDC/504 loans, and microloans. The 7(a) loan program is the most popular, providing versatile financing for a wide range of business expenses, including working capital, equipment purchases, and real estate acquisitions. CDC/504 loans are geared towards funding long-term assets, such as real estate and machinery, while microloans cater to the financial requirements of startups and small businesses in underserved communities.

It’s important for business owners to understand the nuances of SBA loans, including the eligibility criteria, application process, and repayment terms. By familiarizing themselves with these aspects, entrepreneurs can make informed decisions about pursuing SBA financing and effectively manage the loan application process. Additionally, being well-versed in the intricacies of SBA loans enables entrepreneurs to leverage these funds strategically, maximizing their impact on business growth and sustainability.

As we delve deeper into the processing timelines for SBA loans, it’s essential to grasp the fundamental principles of these financial instruments, laying a solid foundation for comprehending the factors that influence the speed and efficiency of loan approval and disbursement.

Several key factors exert influence on the processing time of Small Business Administration (SBA) loans, shaping the timeline from application submission to fund disbursement. Understanding these factors is crucial for business owners seeking SBA financing, as it allows them to anticipate potential delays and take proactive measures to expedite the process.

  • Loan Program and Complexity: The type of SBA loan being pursued can significantly impact the processing time. For instance, 7(a) loans, being the most versatile, may involve a more intricate approval process due to the diverse nature of the funding purposes. On the other hand, CDC/504 loans, which are geared towards specific long-term assets, might have a different approval trajectory. The complexity of the loan program and the associated documentation requirements can influence the processing timeline.
  • Lender’s Workload: The workload and efficiency of the lender processing the SBA loan application can play a pivotal role in determining the processing time. Lenders with a high volume of applications or resource constraints may experience delays in reviewing and approving loan requests. Establishing open communication with the lender and gaining insights into their workload can help manage expectations regarding the processing timeline.
  • Borrower’s Preparedness: The preparedness of the borrower in submitting comprehensive and accurate documentation is a critical factor influencing the processing time. Incomplete or erroneous paperwork can lead to delays as lenders seek additional information or clarifications. Business owners can expedite the process by ensuring all required documentation is meticulously prepared and promptly submitted.
  • Creditworthiness and Financial History: The creditworthiness and financial history of the borrower play a significant role in the approval process. Lenders conduct thorough assessments of the borrower’s credit score, financial statements, and business performance, which can impact the speed of approval. Maintaining a strong credit profile and presenting a robust financial history can expedite the loan processing timeline.
  • Government Review and Approval: SBA loans entail a government guarantee, necessitating a review and approval process by the Small Business Administration. The duration of this governmental review can influence the overall processing time. External factors, such as changes in regulations or administrative backlogs, may also impact the speed of government approval.

By comprehending the multifaceted factors that influence SBA loan processing times, business owners can proactively address potential bottlenecks and optimize their approach to securing financing. In the subsequent sections, we will delve into the typical timeline for SBA loan processing and provide actionable tips for expediting the approval process.

The timeline for processing Small Business Administration (SBA) loans can vary based on a multitude of factors, encompassing the complexity of the loan, the efficiency of the lender, and the thoroughness of the borrower’s documentation. Understanding the typical timeline for SBA loan processing can provide valuable insights for business owners navigating the loan application process.

On average, the processing of SBA loans can range from 60 to 90 days, although this timeline is subject to considerable variation. The following breakdown offers a glimpse into the key stages of the SBA loan processing timeline:

  • Application Submission: The process commences with the submission of the SBA loan application, accompanied by the requisite documentation. This marks the initiation of the formal review and assessment process.
  • Lender’s Initial Review: Upon receiving the application, the lender conducts an initial review to assess the completeness and accuracy of the documentation. This stage involves verifying the borrower’s eligibility and the viability of the proposed business endeavor.
  • Underwriting and Due Diligence: Once the initial review is favorable, the lender proceeds with the underwriting process, scrutinizing the borrower’s financial history, creditworthiness, and the specific details of the loan request. This stage involves a comprehensive evaluation of the borrower’s capacity to fulfill the loan obligations.
  • Government Guarantee and Approval: Following the lender’s approval, the loan package is submitted to the Small Business Administration for review and approval. This stage entails the assessment of the loan’s compliance with SBA guidelines and the issuance of the government guarantee.
  • Finalization and Disbursement: Upon receiving the SBA’s approval, the loan undergoes finalization, culminating in the disbursement of funds to the borrower. This marks the realization of the SBA loan, enabling the business to access the much-needed capital for its growth and operational needs.

It’s important to note that the aforementioned timeline is a generalized overview, and the actual processing time can deviate based on the unique circumstances of each loan application. Factors such as the complexity of the loan, the responsiveness of the borrower in addressing lender queries, and the efficiency of the lender and SBA in processing the application can all impact the overall timeline.

By familiarizing themselves with the typical stages of SBA loan processing, business owners can gain a clearer understanding of the journey from application submission to fund disbursement, enabling them to manage expectations and proactively engage in the process.

While the processing of Small Business Administration (SBA) loans inherently involves a structured timeline, there are proactive measures that business owners can take to expedite the approval and disbursement of funds. By implementing the following tips, entrepreneurs can navigate the loan application process with efficiency and agility, accelerating the timeline for accessing vital financial support:

  • Thorough Documentation Preparation: Prior to submitting the loan application, meticulously prepare all required documentation, ensuring completeness and accuracy. This proactive approach minimizes the likelihood of delays stemming from missing or erroneous paperwork, expediting the lender’s review process.
  • Engage in Open Communication: Foster transparent and open communication with the lender, addressing any queries or requests for additional information promptly. Proactive engagement can facilitate a smoother review process and demonstrate the borrower’s commitment to the application.
  • Enhance Creditworthiness: Prioritize efforts to bolster personal and business credit profiles, as a strong credit history can expedite the approval process. Timely payments, debt management, and rectifying any discrepancies in credit reports can enhance creditworthiness, potentially expediting the lender’s decision-making.
  • Strategic Business Planning: Present a comprehensive and compelling business plan that outlines the utilization of the SBA loan funds and demonstrates the viability and growth potential of the business. A well-crafted business plan can instill confidence in the lender and expedite the underwriting process.
  • Utilize SBA Preferred Lenders: Collaborate with lenders designated as SBA Preferred Lenders, as they possess delegated authority to approve SBA loans, potentially expediting the approval process. Preferred Lenders have the autonomy to make credit decisions, streamlining the overall processing timeline.
  • Stay Informed and Proactive: Stay abreast of the latest SBA loan program updates, guidelines, and regulatory changes, enabling proactive alignment of the loan application with the prevailing requirements. Being informed empowers business owners to navigate the process with agility and compliance.

By implementing these proactive strategies, business owners can optimize their approach to SBA loan applications, potentially expediting the approval and disbursement of funds. While the inherent processing timeline of SBA loans is influenced by various factors, proactive engagement and strategic preparedness can significantly enhance the efficiency of the application process, enabling businesses to access vital financing in a timelier manner.

Navigating the intricacies of Small Business Administration (SBA) loan processing requires a comprehensive understanding of the factors influencing the timeline, as well as proactive strategies to expedite the approval and disbursement of funds. Throughout this guide, we have delved into the fundamental principles of SBA loans, the factors affecting processing times, the typical timeline for loan approval, and actionable tips for expediting the application process.

By comprehending the multifaceted nature of SBA loan processing, business owners can approach the application process with clarity and strategic preparedness, optimizing their chances of securing vital financing for their ventures. Understanding the nuances of SBA loans, including the eligibility criteria, documentation requirements, and the intricacies of different loan programs, empowers entrepreneurs to navigate the application process with confidence and foresight.

It is essential for business owners to recognize the pivotal role of proactive engagement and strategic planning in expediting SBA loan processing. By meticulously preparing documentation, enhancing creditworthiness, and fostering open communication with lenders, entrepreneurs can streamline the approval timeline and expedite the disbursement of funds, enabling them to address their business’s financial needs with agility and efficiency.

As the landscape of small business financing continues to evolve, staying informed about the latest SBA loan program updates and regulatory changes is paramount. Proactive alignment of the loan application with the prevailing requirements ensures compliance and positions businesses for expedited processing, facilitating timely access to crucial funding.

In conclusion, the journey of securing SBA financing is characterized by its potential to propel small businesses towards sustainable growth and success. By leveraging the insights and strategies presented in this guide, entrepreneurs can navigate the SBA loan application process with finesse, optimizing their chances of expediting approval timelines and accessing the financial resources essential for their business’s development and resilience.

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NBC Chicago

Jerry Reinsdorf gives staggering White Sox stadium project price estimate in Crain's interview

The white sox visited springfield on tuesday to pitch their plan for a new stadium to the state government, by nbc chicago staff • published 3 hours ago • updated 2 hours ago.

Chicago White Sox owner and chairman Jerry Reinsdorf gave an exclusive interview to Crain’s Chicago Business this week, and in the process gave new details on the cost and scope of the team’s proposed stadium project in the South Loop.

Reinsdorf, who met with lawmakers during a visit to Springfield this week, says that the total cost of the first phase of the ballpark project in the South Loop could hit $4 billion, and that the Sox would seek public funding to complete the project, according to the interview.

The project would include not just the ballpark, but also infrastructure around the stadium, as well as a hotel and apartments, along with a variety of businesses.

The funding would come from a variety of sources, including a TIF district established in a deal between the city and Related Midwest, the company developing "The 78" site.

Feeling out of the loop? We'll catch you up on the Chicago news you need to know. Sign up for the weekly Chicago Catch-Up newsletter here.

Bond issues would also be required, as would capturing state sales taxes in the area of the project.

“At the end of the day, the benefits to the city and state are going to outweigh the cost,” he said. “This is not just a ballpark. This is a development of which the ballpark is the anchor.”

Reinsdorf also argued that the White Sox “cannot succeed” in their current location, saying the team can’t generate revenue to pay salaries of top-tier players, citing Shohei Ohtani’s $700 million contract as an example.

According to Forbes, the White Sox have a current value of $2.05 billion.

Reinsdorf also said the team would likely be sold after his death, and said the stadium project would be the only surefire way to ensure they would remain in Chicago.

More details can be found within the Crain’s story, which you can read here.

The White Sox released a statement after their meetings with lawmakers on Tuesday.

“We recognize discussions about The 78 serving as the future home of the Chicago White Sox have generated a lot of excitement over the potential of the larger project’s positive economic impact. We are mindful and respectful of the legislative process and wanted to travel to Springfield to meet personally with legislative leaders. We’re excited to share our vision, and we appreciate their time and hospitality.”

Another statement followed from a Related Midwest Spokesperson.

“We appreciated the time afforded to us by lawmakers in Springfield today. As we shared in the meetings, The 78 is a generational development and an investment in our hometown. It’s personal to us and we are excited about the prospect of delivering the city’s next great neighborhood, while making an historic economic investment that will bring over 10,000 construction jobs and 22,000 permanent jobs to our city and state. The long-term impact will be transformative – creating a new riverfront neighborhood anchored by a state-of-the-art ballpark for generations of fans to enjoy and help enhance Chicago’s place as a top destination.”

According to a recent, extensive report from Crain's Chicago Business , Reinsdorf is reportedly confident in his chances of winning over the state's approval for his complex financial plan to fulfill the goal of building an entirely new Sox stadium, in collaboration with real estate firm Related Midwest, along the Chicago River.

"The two [Reinsdorf and Related Midwest President Curt Bailey] are bullish they can win state support by arguing the stadium subsidies will bring along billions more in private investment, and the deal is structured in a way to not require new or increased taxes," the report states.

The onus of the plan is to create private investment funds from housing, bars, restaurants, a 4,000-spot parking garage and parks around the stadium from the state subsidy to create funding back to the state.

The White Sox hope to use a 2% hotel occupancy fee --- meant to pay ISFA’s [Illinois Sports Facilities Authority, a government entity used for constructing sports stadiums, including the White Sox' Guaranteed Rate Field] annual debt service for their bonds towards the White Sox' stadium and the Bears' 2003 renovations to Soldier Field --- "for decades beyond when all outstanding bonds are currently meant to be paid off in 2034."

The extensive, complex plan needs state approval, which will be the most difficult part of the plan. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, much like other state politicians, is hesitant to use public funding on stadiums, as it rarely creates positive dividends for the city/state.

Last week, Pritzker noted that he thought renderings of a potential new Sox stadium were beautiful, but said his administration will soon have official talks regarding the plans. The governor noted the state needs "to be careful with public dollars" while asking aloud what kind of benefit the stadium would bring to the state.

The IFSA would certainly need to co-sign the plan, too, as the adjustments to their bonds are drastic. The plan leaves Guaranteed Rate Field unaccounted for, which they are on the hook for paying.

If approved, it could be a massive turning point in Chicago's history.

Check back to this story for more updates

Click here to follow the White Sox Talk Podcast.

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business plan approval process

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Elon Musk and CEO salaries in India

As demonstrated by mr musk's soaring salary package plan, the process for securing approval for ceo compensations is deeply flawed, whether in india or the us.

Elon Musk

For salary hikes, IT firms now considering tenure along with performance

Salary hikes of major it companies take a back seat amid weak demand, elon musk says he will give $1 bn to wikipedia if it changes its name, wipro to roll out merit salary increases, effective by december 1, accenture skips pay hikes and promotions in india and sri lanka this year, acharya vidhyasagar championed the cause of knowledge to empower people, best of bs opinion: nda approach to psus, caring for elderly & more, the smart shifts in video, the nda approach to psus, india's soaring innovation stock.

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First Published: Feb 21 2024 | 10:08 PM IST

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COMMENTS

  1. How to Create Approval Processes

    Submission: An approval process usually begins with someone submitting something (a document, invoice, purchase order, etc.). You'll need to create a submission portal where users go to submit their work. Think about including a submission receipt option, so submitters have a record of their activity.

  2. How To Write A Business Plan (2024 Guide)

    Describe Your Services or Products. The business plan should have a section that explains the services or products that you're offering. This is the part where you can also describe how they fit ...

  3. How to Write a Business Plan, Step by Step

    7. Perform a business financial analysis. 8. Make financial projections. 9. Add additional information to an appendix. Business plan tips and resources. MORE LIKE THIS Small Business. A business ...

  4. The Business Planning Process: Steps To Creating Your Plan

    The business plan process includes 6 steps as follows: Do Your Research Strategize Calculate Your Financial Forecast Draft Your Plan Revise & Proofread Nail the Business Plan Presentation We've provided more detail for each of these key business plan steps below. 1. Do Your Research

  5. Write your business plan

    Include your mission statement, your product or service, and basic information about your company's leadership team, employees, and location. You should also include financial information and high-level growth plans if you plan to ask for financing.

  6. Project Approval Process Made Easy: 5 Steps & Best Practices

    The project approval process incorporates a structured set of steps that a project must go through before it can begin. It is essentially a roadmap that ensures that the right projects are undertaken at the right time and with the right resources.

  7. 7 steps for an efficient project approval process (2024 guide)

    #1: Specify your project approval requirements #2: Choose a powerful project approval tool #3: Keep stakeholders in the loop #4: Share assets for review and approval #5: Share thoughts, comments, and feedback #6: Integrate feedback and resolve comments #7: Finalize and approve What is a project approval process?

  8. How to Streamline Your Approval Process and Save Time

    An approval process is a series of steps that a document, project, proposal, or any other type of work has to go through before it is finalized and approved by the relevant stakeholders. It can involve different levels of authority, such as managers, directors, executives, clients, or external parties.

  9. Project Review & Approval Process Tips

    1. Establish a clear, streamlined process for feedback It's a lot harder to succeed if you don't know what success looks like in the first place. So before you even start to write your plan, discuss review and approval with stakeholders, and let their input shape how the process will work.

  10. Approval Process

    An approval process is a type of business process that includes steps to formally approve work from different levels of the organization. The work can include budgets, invoices, project outlines, marketing initiatives, or any other items that need a series of approvals from different departments. What is an Approval System?

  11. Complete Guide to Approval Process and Workflow

    1. Approval request and supporting documents 2. The approvers 3. The levels of permission for the approval process and workflow 4. The approval logs 5. The due dates Examples of the approval process and workflow 1. Invoice approvals 2. Purchase order approvals 3. Project plan and budget approvals 4. Content approvals 5. Leave approvals

  12. Approval Process: Definition and Examples

    An approval process is a type of workflow which comprises a series of steps that a work must pass to be approved. The steps typically involve different departments and employees who review the work and either approve or reject it.

  13. 5 Steps for an Efficient Project Plan Approval Process

    1. Project Initiation - This stage of the project is where the project's scope, objectives, and requirements are defined. During the initiation stage, potential stakeholders and their needs and expectations are also assessed. 2. Planning - Once the scope and objectives are clearly defined, the next stage is to develop a detailed project plan.

  14. The Importance of a Deal Approval Workflow (and How to…

    The Importance of a Deal Approval Workflow (and How to Create One) Sales teams are at the core of almost every organization. From prospecting to sending, their efforts throughout the sales cycle are crucial in generating revenue and business growth. But to prevent costly errors from popping up, their work often hinges on sign offs from various ...

  15. The Guide to Building a Better Approval Process

    Last Updated: November 15, 2023 Download the free ebook: The Procurement Strategy Playbook for Modern Businesses Managing processes in an organization is a complex and ever-evolving task that takes time and effort to complete and document correctly.

  16. Customize How Records Get Approved

    Plan the automation of a business process using an approval process. Get Started with Approvals. An approval process automates how Salesforce records are approved in your org. In an approval process, you specify: The steps necessary for a record to be approved and who approves it at each step. For example, when an employee creates a time-off ...

  17. Business approvals templates overview (preview)

    The business approvals templates are available with as a configured collection of components and tools that are designed to help organizations automate their approvals processes quickly. These templates cover many of the typical requirements in most organizations, such as the ability to: Configure multi-stage approvals. Delegate others to approve.

  18. 5 ways to manage the business travel approval process

    1. Consult all relevant business travel stakeholders The first place to start is to decide who will be part of your business travel approval process. This may look different depending on your organization's size and structure. Small companies may have an informal travel policy and only one or two people to consult for travel approval.

  19. How to Write a Business Plan for a Loan Application

    Business plans are important because most lenders will require a business plan as part of the approval process. Once your business plan is complete, you can use it for different business loan applications (although you might have to tweak and adjust it based on lender specifications). It can also guide you through different stages of operating ...

  20. Project Management Transition Plan Template

    Efficiently streamline your project's transition with our comprehensive plan template, facilitating smooth handover and ensuring project success. 1. Identify Project Scope and Objectives. Initiate Stakeholder Analysis. Develop Project Management Plan. Delineate Roles and Responsibilities. Outline Resource Allocation.

  21. Business Location Approvals

    A Business Location Approval (BLA) is required for all businesses that are located within City limits (formerly called Business Approval or Zoning Approval) prior to obtaining a Business Tax Certificate (business license). The BLA process is an opportunity to confirm that your proposed use is permitted in the property's zoning district and that the structure meets applicable building and ...

  22. Procurement Management Plan Template

    Implement a structured procurement with our Procurement Management Plan Template, an efficient tool for supplier selection, contract management, and payment processing. 1. Identify procurement needs and requirements. Identify potential suppliers. Preparation of a procurement plan. Approval: Procurement Plan.

  23. Audacy reorganization plan approved by bankruptcy court judge

    Feb 20, 2024. Updated Feb 20, 2024 10:29pm EST. Audacy received court approval Tuesday to emerge from bankruptcy under the ownership of a group of creditors led by Soros Fund Management. U.S ...

  24. Creating The Perfect Travel Request Approval Process

    The ultimate goal should be to plan a workflow that dramatically improves time management, efficiency, transparency, and visibility when filling, submitting, and handling travel requests. 2. Consult all relevant business travel stakeholders ... Once you have centralized and organized your business travel approval process, you must increase the ...

  25. How Long Do SBA Loans Take To Process?

    A well-crafted business plan can instill confidence in the lender and expedite the underwriting process. Utilize SBA Preferred Lenders: Collaborate with lenders designated as SBA Preferred Lenders, as they possess delegated authority to approve SBA loans, potentially expediting the approval process.

  26. Reinsdorf: White Sox stadium, other projects could cost $4 billion

    Chicago White Sox owner and chairman Jerry Reinsdorf gave an exclusive interview to Crain's Chicago Business this week, and in the process gave stunning ... complex plan needs state approval ...

  27. Audacy earns approval to sell two Boston properties for $22M

    The Audacy Massachusetts headquarters building is home to all of Audacy's Boston radio stations, including sports talk station WEEI and adult contemporary music stations Mix 104.1 and Magic 106.7.

  28. Elon Musk and CEO salaries in India

    Last month, the Delaware Court of Chancery struck down Elon Musk's gravity-defying $55.8 billion pay-package at Tesla, approved by shareholders in 2018. At $55.8 billion maximum value and $2.6 billion fair value, the compensation was almost entirely through stock grants. The plan was "250 times larger than the contemporaneous median peer ...