Every organization needs to spend money to operate and grow. But without effective controls, spend can quickly spiral out of alignment with budget and strategy. The key is finding the right balance: enough control to prevent rogue spend, but not so much friction that it slows the business down.
Here are three practical tips for building spend request workflows that achieve this balance.
1. Make the Front Door Frictionless
The number one reason employees circumvent procurement processes is friction. If submitting a request takes 30 minutes and multiple forms, people will find workarounds. Build an intake experience that’s intuitive, mobile-friendly, and takes less than 5 minutes.
Dynamic intake forms that adapt based on request type can dramatically reduce friction while still capturing all necessary information.
2. Automate Routing, Not Just Approvals
Most organizations focus on automating the approval step, but the real bottleneck is often routing — getting the right request to the right approver at the right time. Build rules-based routing that automatically involves Legal for contracts above a certain threshold, IT for software purchases, and Security for vendors handling sensitive data.
This eliminates the manual work of figuring out who needs to approve what, and ensures no critical stakeholder is accidentally bypassed.
3. Embed Budget Context at the Point of Decision
Approvers shouldn’t have to leave the approval workflow to check budget availability. Embed real-time budget data — including actuals, committed spend, and outstanding requests — directly in the review interface. When approvers can see “this department has $50K remaining in their Q3 software budget” alongside the request, they make faster, more confident decisions.
The Bottom Line
Effective spend request workflows don’t have to be complex. Focus on reducing friction at intake, automating intelligent routing, and arming approvers with budget context. These three steps alone can transform a manual, error-prone process into a streamlined, strategic workflow.