SharePoint · Manufacturing and engineering

A SharePoint Online workflow for capital expenditure approvals

A SharePoint Online workflow that takes a capital expenditure request from the creator to approvers, analyst, managing director and accounts, with every decision recorded and a report that exports to Excel.

Client: An industrial manufacturer with several divisions and plants
Industry: Manufacturing and engineering
Platform: SharePoint
Started from: Approval Workflow product

01The challenge

Capital expenditure requests were passed around by email and spreadsheet. Nobody could say which stage a request had reached, approvers were chosen informally, and finance had to rebuild the history by hand when it asked for a report.

02The solution

We built a request and approval system on SharePoint Online. The creator fills in the request, attaches quotes and picks the approvers and the analyst. The system chooses the managing director route from the request details, sends an email at every stage and keeps each decision with its comment. Accounts close the request at the end, and finance can search all requests by date and export them to Excel.

How the workflow runs

Create the requestThe creator enters location, division, nature of the request and cost, and attaches quotes and specifications.
Approvers reviewEach chosen approver approves or rejects with a comment. Every action sends an email to the next person.
Analyst reviewA finance analyst checks the numbers and the quotes before the request moves up.
Managing director routeThe system picks the managing director flow from the request details. The director approves or rejects with a remark.
Accounts closureAccounts complete the request, which closes it.
ReportingFinance searches all requests by date and exports the list to Excel.

Screens from the system

Sample screens redrawn with sample data. They show the real stages of the workflow.

Screen 1 of 4Built for this client

Appropriation request form

The creator enters the request details and picks approvers.

What we built

Request formA form with mandatory fields, attachments and approver pickers.
Dynamic approval routeThe managing director flow is chosen from the request, not by hand.
Stage tabsPending for approver, analyst, director and accounts, plus completed.
Email at every stepEach person is told when a request needs them.
Report with exportSearch by date range and download the result as an Excel file.

Built with SharePoint Online · Custom forms · Email notifications · Excel export