Workflow

What it means

A workflow is the sequence of steps a document or task passes through from creation to completion, together with the rules for whose desk it sits on at each stage. In a system it is also the mechanism that moves work along automatically.

It differs from a process map in purpose: the map describes how things happen, the workflow enforces it. So the map is drawn first and the workflow configured from it.

A workflow is not the same thing as task automation. A workflow moves work between people and decides whose turn it is; RPA, by contrast, replaces one person’s clicks inside an application. A company often needs both, but the workflow must be clear first: a robot that does not know whom to hand its output to just moves the chaos elsewhere.

How it works in practice

The commonest case in accounting is the journey of a purchase invoice: arrival at a single address, field recognition, approval by the responsible person, inclusion in the payment run, posting, archiving. Each step has a deadline and a deputy for absences.

The benefit grows with document digitisation and with integration between systems. What repeats identically belongs in the workflow; what needs judgement belongs in an SOP and a RACI matrix.

A typical second case is a business trip claim: the employee files a request, the manager approves the trip, receipts are added on return, the manager confirms the claim and accounting calculates the travel allowances for the next payroll. Every step has a deadline, so the claim does not sit in someone’s inbox for months.

What to watch out for

A workflow with five approval levels does not add control - it adds delay and creates workarounds. Automating a badly designed process is equally pointless: it just repeats the same error faster.

The system lets one and the same person enter an invoice, approve it and queue it for payment. The workflow then exists only on paper and a fake invoice goes through without anyone else seeing it. Approval has to separate roles, and every decision must stay in the audit log with a name and a timestamp.