Meetings approval process

An approval process has one commercial purpose: to put a decision in front of the right person while that decision can still change the outcome. Almost everything that goes wrong with meetings approvals is a variation on failing that test.

The classic sequence in an organisation without a designed process runs: department identifies a need, contacts venues, verbally agrees a date and rate, raises a purchase order, finance approves it. By then the supplier is chosen, the rate is set, the terms are whatever the venue offered, and the approver is signing off a decision already made. Fixing that sequence is the core of corporate meetings management.

The request form is the most undervalued artefact in the programme. It is the only point at which information can be captured cheaply, because afterwards the requester has moved on and every question costs an email. Keep it short enough to complete in five minutes and structured enough to analyse later: a long form is the main reason people go around the process.

A twelve-person training day at £2,400 does not need a director’s signature. A £60,000 client conference with a 90 per cent cancellation scale does. The design question is where the lines sit and how many there are.

Three bands is usually enough: the lowest requires the route and the data capture with budget-holder approval only; the middle adds the category owner and competitive sourcing; the top adds senior sign-off and legal review of the contract. Decision rights for each band come from meetings governance.

Two refinements matter. Set thresholds on total committed exposure rather than deposit or headline day-delegate rate, because that is what the organisation is actually risking. And include non-financial triggers regardless of value: overseas destinations, external client attendance, regulated audiences, and any event where the organisation’s name appears publicly.

Some requirements really are urgent — a results announcement, a crisis response, a client opportunity with a two-day window. A process that cannot accommodate them will be bypassed and then distrusted.

The answer is a fast lane, defined rather than improvised: who can invoke it, what reduced approval applies, what the maximum commitment is, and that the paperwork is completed afterwards rather than never. An exception that never gets recorded is indistinguishable from non-compliance in the data.

The test of a fast lane is what proportion of activity uses it. A handful of events a year means it is working. A quarter of the programme means the standard route is too slow and the fast lane has become the process.

Venue contracts commit the organisation to terms extending well beyond the headline fee. Cancellation scales, attrition clauses and minimum spend commitments are all contractual exposure, as meetings risk management sets out.

Signature authority should follow the existing authority matrix, applied to committed exposure rather than invoice value. In practice the list of people who may sign an event contract is shorter than the list of people who currently do.

Where an external partner contracts on the organisation’s behalf, the authority question does not disappear — it becomes a question of what that partner is mandated to commit to and at what level. Write it into the engagement rather than assuming it.

Every control added to this workflow costs time somewhere, and time is what the requester cares about. A process that adds three approvals and two weeks will lose to a phone call to a hotel, every time.

The way out is not fewer controls but better sequencing and preparation. Pre-agreed rates through a preferred venue programme remove a negotiation cycle. Standing terms with regular suppliers remove a legal review per booking. A single route in, staffed by people who know the brief format, removes the back-and-forth at the start. Done properly a governed process is faster than an ungoverned one, which is the only argument requesters find persuasive. For how this fits a wider build, see implementing Strategic Meetings Management and how to build an SMM programme.