Delegation of Authority
Approvals that follow your Delegation of Authority, every time
Your DoA says who may approve what, up to how much. In most organisations that policy lives in a PDF, and the evidence that it was followed lives in email. Smart Memo turns it into routes that apply themselves to every memo and request.
What your DoA looks like in Smart Memo
Thresholds by value
Value bands per currency add approvers automatically, so large requests reach the CFO or CEO without anyone remembering to send them.
Stages and conditions
Sequential or parallel stages, each shown only when its condition applies, such as a unit, a category or a budget line.
Roles, not names
Approvers are resolved from roles, reporting lines and unit heads, so the route survives staff changes.
Acting approvers
Authority passes to a named acting officer for a set period, and the record shows the capacity in which they approved.
Segregation of duties
A requester can never approve their own request, and one person cannot clear two stages that must be independent.
Deadlines and escalation
Each stage has a deadline. Reminders go first, then escalation to the person you nominate. Nothing is ever approved automatically.
From policy PDF to working routes in four steps
- 1Map your DoAIn a short workshop we turn your policy into rules: request types, value bands, units and the roles that approve each.
- 2Build the routesEach request type gets a staged route with conditions on amount, currency and unit, and segregation of duties.
- 3Test on real casesWe replay last quarter's approvals through the routes to check every one would have gone to the right person.
- 4Go live and measureStart with one department. Cycle time and approvals outside authority are measured from day one.
Delegation of Authority questions
What is a Delegation of Authority?
A Delegation of Authority (DoA), also called a delegation of authority matrix or limits of authority, is the policy that says who in an organisation may approve which decisions, up to what value. The board delegates to the chief executive, who delegates further to managers.
What is Delegation of Authority software?
Software that applies the DoA automatically. Instead of the requester choosing an approver, the system reads the type and value of the request and sends it to the people with the authority to approve it, then records the decision.
What happens when the DoA changes?
An administrator updates the route and publishes a new version. Requests already in progress finish on the version they started with, so the record always shows which rules applied.
How are acting appointments handled?
An approver can name an acting approver for a set period, for example while on leave. The route uses the acting approver until the period ends, and the record shows that the approval was given in an acting capacity.
Can we prove an approval was within authority?
Yes. Each approval records the route version, the rule that selected the approver and the approver's capacity, on a hash-chained log that shows any alteration.
Bring your DoA. We will show it working.
Send us your Delegation of Authority policy before the demo and we will route one of your real requests through it.