How to map an approval process

A worked example, stage by stage

1. Start where the evidence does

   The chart opens on a state of the world rather than a task somebody performs: "Expense incurred and receipt captured" — the receipt exists before any approval question can be put to it. The row after it is the last thing the claimant controls; everything past that is other people deciding.

2. Two refusals, one shared ending

   Each of the three diamonds here can refuse. "Receipt attached and within policy?" sends "Returned" backwards to the row the claimant controls and "Breach" sideways for an exception, while "Refused" and "Rejected" both arrive at "Claim rejected and closed" — the one ending two refusals may share.

3. The limit decides who signs

   "Value over approval threshold?" sends the claim through "Escalate to second approver" and then rejoins the flow at "Duplicate claim detected?". The limit changes how many approvals a claim collects, not which route it takes — and the independent finance checks apply either way.

4. Approvals are tested afterwards

   The two labelled arrows out of "Post claim to expense ledger" are not alternatives: "Reimburse" takes every claim on towards payment, while "Sampled" also draws some of them into the Auditor lane, where "Claim supported by evidence?" can still reach "Recover amount and log finding".

How it works

1. Write the authority limits down first

   Before any boxes exist, copy each value band out of the delegation schedule and write beside it the two things the schedule almost never states: what the amount is measured on — claim total, single line, monthly total — and which side of the number the boundary falls. Otherwise approvers settle both privately, differently each time.

2. Decide what each refusal does

   For every point that can say no, write which outcome it produces — back to the submitter for correction, sideways to somebody with the authority to permit an exception, or closed. The correction case needs the number of the step the submitter genuinely repeats, because that backwards arrow is what makes the map honest.

3. Type the steps and number the arrows

   In QueryChart the sheet is the diagram: one row per step, its wording in Box text, and in Line to the row number it hands the request to — several numbers, comma separated, where it can go more than one way. No box is placed by hand, which is why the map survives being corrected in a meeting.

4. Turn the limits into labelled decisions

   Any row that tests something is a Decision, set in the Shape column, worded as the question its owner is really answering. The branch labels go into Line text, positioned to match the numbers beside them: "Over limit" and "Within limit" on the threshold row is how a reader places their own request.

5. Lane each step by who is accountable

   The Vertical lane column holds the role — Employee, Line manager, Finance / AP, Payroll, Auditor — and the phase goes into the Horizontal lane. Word those phases as states a submitter can be told, because Validation and Finance review answer where a claim has got to, and a request whose phase nobody can name is the one chased by email.

6. Walk it as the submitter, then name the deputies

   Read the map from the requester's side: at each diamond, say what they are told and what they do next, and fix every point where the answer is nothing. Then put a deputy on every gate — a name, not a role — and have the same names entered on the delegation schedule, because a map and a schedule that disagree are worse than neither.

Frequently asked questions

What should an approval process map show?

Four things a chain of approver names does not: the condition that decides who approves this particular request, who decides it when that person is on leave, the route out of every refusal, and where the decision is recorded. A map that shows only the sequence answers a question nobody had. The test is to take a real request that went wrong, trace it on the diagram, and see whether the diagram explains what happened to it.

What happens if an approver does not respond?

Whatever the process says, and most processes say nothing, so the request simply waits. The three honest options are a reminder that repeats, a named delegate who can decide in the owner's absence, and escalation to the level above after a stated period. Auto-approval on a timeout is the fourth option and it is not one: silence is not a decision, and what it writes to the record cannot be told apart from a considered approval. Draw the delegate on the map, because the absence is routine, not exceptional.

What is the difference between rejecting and returning a request?

Returning means the request is incomplete or incorrectly prepared and the submitter can fix it: a missing receipt, the wrong cost centre, an unsigned form. Rejecting means the request as intended is not permitted, and no amount of resubmission changes that. Conflating them produces the familiar loop where somebody resubmits a policy breach three times with better paperwork. On a map they are different arrows, and the returned one points backwards.

Does an approval threshold apply to the total or each line?

To whichever unit the policy states, and most policies state neither — which is how £600 of hotel nights becomes one claim needing a second signature or five claims needing none. Fix the unit, then fix the boundary: is a request at exactly £500 over the limit or within it? Put both on the decision row, in the currency the request is submitted in, because the alternative is every approver settling it for themselves in the moment.