Worked examples / Inside the business: approvals
Sign-offs on a request
Four sign-offs before a purchase request is approved. 60 requests a month, one in ten a poor use of money. Each sign-off takes the person asking about half an hour.
The steps after step 2 cost more than they get back
Stopping after step 2 would leave you $3,676 a month better off.
It costs$14,122a month
It gets back$14,063what it stops, and any fee
- Of the 17.5 requests it screens out each month, 11.8 are requests worth approving: 67.8% of everyone screened out.
- Still getting through: 0.4 of the 6 requests that were a poor use of money.
- It costs the people going through it 104.3 hours a month, 19.2 of them from people who do not get through.
Put in your own numbers
This is a worked example with illustrative figures, not data about any real person or company. Change any of them in the calculator and the answer changes with them.
How this answer was worked out
| Step 1 | costs $3,996, gets back $7,500: +$3,504 |
| Step 2 | costs $3,637, gets back $3,750: +$113 |
| Step 3 | costs $3,360, gets back $1,875: -$1,485 |
| Step 4 | costs $3,129, gets back $938: -$2,191 |
Every formula is written out on the formulas page.
What the calculator asks you
- How many steps, and how many people arrive
- What each wanted person is worth, and the share each step turns away
- The share it is meant to stop, what each costs, and the share each step stops
- What a step costs the people going through it
- Any fee paid by those who get through
Open the calculator
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