Approval Notification Speed Savings Calculator
Approvals sit in inboxes for days. Moving the request to Teams, Slack or WhatsApp with approve and reject buttons can shorten the wait, but only some approvals cost anything while they wait. This calculator prices that carefully.
Your numbers
Purchase requisitions, invoices, expense reports, ECOs and similar.
Request submitted to approved, taken from workflow timestamps.
Share where someone or something cannot proceed until approved.
Idle labor, expedite fees or line wait attributed to one blocked approval hour.
Your results
Only blocking approvals are priced. Wait time on approvals that block nothing has no direct cost in this model.
Monthly saving vs expected chat wait
Sweeps Expected wait with chat approval from 0.5 to 18, holding your other inputs fixed.
Want a chat approval flow tied to your ERP?
An optional scoping call on write back, authority checks and audit trail for chat approvals.
Optional. The tool and every export work without this. No spam.
How to use it
Pull the average time from submission to approval from your ERP workflow log. In SAP this is the workflow work item history, in Oracle the approval history tables, in Dynamics the workflow history. Estimate the share of approvals where work is actually stuck, such as a purchase requisition that holds a production order. Then enter a realistic expected wait with chat. A pilot on one approval type gives a far better number than hope.
- Use median and mean and see which is more honest
- Estimate blocking share from a sample of 30 approvals
- Count only costs you can name, such as expedite fees or idle hours
The formula
Blocked hours saved equals approvals times the reduction in wait times the blocking share. Monthly saving equals those hours times the cost of a blocked hour. Payback equals one time build cost divided by monthly saving. With 900 approvals, a 14 hour reduction and 35 percent blocking, that is 4,410 blocked hours a month, which at 12 dollars is about 52,900 dollars. Change the blocking share to see how fast the case shrinks.
Common mistakes
Do not assume chat removes the wait. Approvers still need authority, context and a way to reject with a reason. Approvals above a value threshold may need a stronger audit trail than a chat button gives, so keep the system of record in the ERP and write the decision back. Also remember notification fatigue: a flood of low value approvals will be ignored faster than email.
- Write the decision back to the ERP, never leave it in chat
- Keep high value approvals on a controlled path
- Test delegation and out of office handling
Frequently Asked Questions
Is chat approval secure enough?
It can be if the bot authenticates the user against your identity provider, the ERP validates authority on write back, and every decision is logged. Do not accept unauthenticated button links for financial approvals.
Why price only blocking approvals?
An approval that blocks nothing costs nothing while it waits. Pricing all of them would inflate the case and your finance team would rightly challenge it.
What wait should I expect with chat?
Pilot one approval type for a month and measure. Results depend on approver habits and reminders more than on the channel itself.
Can I use it for expense or invoice approvals?
Yes. Adjust the blocking share and cost per blocked hour. Early payment discounts missed on invoices are a concrete cost to include.
If you want approvals pushed to chat with the decision written back to your ERP and audit trail, Netray can build it on your infrastructure.
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