Locked doesn't mean stuck — it means supervised
A clerk who cannot see the Refund button decides the software is broken. A clerk who sees it locked asks a supervisor — who approves that one action with their own password and walks away. No admin hunt, no session left unlocked, no workaround culture.
What you get
Four eyes, where you want them
Some actions deserve a second look: the big discount, the price override, the credit past its limit. Approvals let a permitted user authorize on the spot — the manager's code at the counter, the classic retail choreography — with the software recording who asked and who approved.
Policy lives in the role definitions: what needs approval, and who counts as an approver. The counter stays fast; the exceptions get their four eyes.
Documents carry their states
Quotations show their approval lifecycle — not sent, awaiting, approved, declined, revised — so the pipeline is visible on the register itself. Purchase orders carry approval flows for businesses that require sign-off before ordering. The state is on the document, where everyone can see it.
Maya extends the same philosophy to AI: everything she drafts is a proposal card a person approves before it executes. Approval is the house style.
Recorded, always
An approval is an auditable event: who, what, when, on which document. Six months later the question 'who authorized this?' has a lookup, not an investigation.
Trust with a record beats trust with a memory — and it is kinder to staff, too.
Frequently asked questions
Why not just give trusted staff full access?
Because trust plus a record beats trust alone. Approvals keep the work moving while keeping every override attributable.