By team
Who has to say yes depends on how much it costs
A $400 monitor and a $250,000 data processor should not travel the same path. stepbase reads the amount on the request and sends it to the approvers that amount actually requires, then records the decision against the request.
The threshold is written down. The routing isn't.
Most finance teams have a delegation of authority matrix. It lives in a PDF, and the requester is the one expected to apply it. So small purchases collect signatures they never needed, large ones quietly skip a level, and the only evidence that anyone approved anything is a forwarded email chain with the budget code added halfway down. When audit asks who authorised the spend, someone starts searching a mailbox.
Today
- The approval matrix lives in a policy PDF the requester has to interpret
- Requisitions go out by email to whoever the requester thinks should see them
- Missing budget codes come back as a reply-all, not a real send-back
- Compliance, legal and finance each ask the new vendor for the same details
- A $3k spot buy waits behind the same review queue as a $300k contract
- Nobody can say what has been committed this quarter but not yet received
On stepbase
- The threshold is a condition in the workflow, evaluated on the estimated total
- Each requisition lands with the department, finance or executive it needs
- Reviewers send a request back for revision, and it returns down the same chain
- One vendor application feeds compliance, legal and finance in sequence
- Low-value, low-risk vendors skip the full review and go active
- Every approval is timestamped against the request, with the approver named
How it works
- 1
Capture the request with the numbers on it
Estimated total, budget code, supplier, quotes attached. Number fields can carry min and max, and required fields mean nothing moves without the detail approvers ask for anyway.
- 2
Branch on the amount
A condition block reads the estimated total and picks the path: under $1,000 straight to procurement, $1,000 to $25,000 via finance, $25,000 and above to an executive first. Change the number, not the process.
- 3
Send each step to the right owner
Department heads by role, finance and compliance as team queues where whoever picks it up owns it, executives by name. Vendors themselves can be sent a one-time link by email without a stepbase account.
- 4
Give reviewers a real send-back
Approve, reject, or return for more information. A returned requisition goes back to the requester, gets revised, and re-enters the same approval chain rather than restarting as a new email thread.
- 5
Keep the record
Every action is logged with who did it, when, and what they submitted. For team queues the claim is recorded too, so the audit answer is the person who acted, not the queue they came from.
Start from a template
Every template is fully editable: change the stages, forms, and routing to match how you work.
FAQ