Workflow automation: the hidden cost of managing email approvals

Operational Gap #3 of 5 | Series: What ERP Doesn't Solve

There is a conversation that is repeated in almost every medium-sized company when they ask how purchase requests are approved. The answer is usually something like this: “an email is sent to the person responsible”, “if he doesn't answer in two days, he is reminded”, “if he is traveling, someone else approves it” or “if it's urgent, he's called directly”.

When you ask where this process is registered, silence is eloquent.

Email approvals are one of the most invisible — and most costly — processes in midsize businesses. Invisible because no one perceives them as a problem: they have always worked that way. Costly because they accumulate hours, errors, delays and a lack of traceability that impacts the entire organization.

Only 23% of medium-sized companies use the workflow management features of their ERP. [1] The remaining 77% manage their approval flows via email, WhatsApp or verbally: without registration, without traceability and without automation.

The problem is not the lack of tools, but the UX of the ERP

Most mid-market ERPs include workflow or approval modules. SAP Business One, Microsoft Dynamics or Odoo allow you to define authorization flows. The problem is not that they don't exist, but that they are not used. And there's a clear reason: 80% of ERP users say they're dissatisfied with their system's interface. [4]

When the user experience is poor, adoption disappears.

Setting up an approval flow in a standard ERP usually requires technical knowledge, IT intervention or external consulting, and weeks of configuration. Even modifying a rule—for example, that purchases over €5,000 require double approval—may involve opening a ticket that takes weeks to resolve.

Business can't wait. Send an email.

The impact on time is significant. McKinsey estimates that employees waste up to 9.3 hours a week searching for information and coordinating approval processes. [2] And up to 45% of that time could be eliminated through automation. [3]

Which processes suffer the most from this gap

Undigitized approval flows affect practically all departments, but their impact is especially critical in those processes with financial or regulatory implications: requests for purchase and registration of suppliers, approval of holidays and absences, management of expenses, price changes and discounts, validation of contracts or compliance processes and document signing.

In all these cases, the lack of a digital workflow generates the same pattern: approvals that are lost in the inbox, bottlenecks when the person responsible is not available, the absence of an auditable record in the face of discrepancies and a strong dependence on specific people to make the process work.

How does this gap manifest itself in different sectors

Insurance and financial services

Midsize insurers face a double challenge: managing complex approval flows—policies, claims, renewals—and complying with regulatory requirements that require full traceability of each decision. [7]

Standard ERP modules are not designed for structures such as agent commissions with multiple levels of override or scaling. [9] The result is predictable: Excel and email as a solution, with the associated compliance risk.

Retail and ecommerce

The speed of multichannel retail requires approvals in near real time. A discount request for a VIP customer, a BORIS return (online purchase, in-store return) or a campaign price change cannot wait days for an email response. [8]

When the flow is manual, the sales team is faced with an uncomfortable decision: act without approval or lose the sale.

Manufacturing and operations

In industrial environments, processes such as engineering changes (ECO), urgent material requests, or process deviations have direct implications for quality and safety.

Here, traceability is not optional. When these flows are managed by email, the risk is not only operational, but also regulatory.

How to transform workflows without touching the ERP and within 4-6 weeks

The architecture of a satellite workflow tool is simple. WeWeb allows you to build intuitive approval interfaces, accessible from the mobile phone and with full visibility of the status of each request. [5]

Behind it, tools such as n8n or Make orchestrate the business logic: if the amount exceeds €5,000, the financial director is notified; if there is no response within 48 hours, the system scales automatically; if the supplier is not registered, the request is blocked. All this without the need to modify the ERP.

The advantage of the no-code stack is threefold: the logic can be adapted without depending on IT, the user experience is designed to guarantee adoption, and the entire approval history is automatically recorded — for example, in Supabase — for any audit.

The impact is clear. The development cost can be reduced by up to 70% compared to customizing the ERP. [6] The implementation period is between 4 and 6 weeks.

The question is not technical. It's operational: how many hours are wasted each week in manual approvals — and how much that time actually costs.

Bibliographic references

Methodological note: Numerical citations in superscript [N] refer to the APA references listed below. All statistics have been verified in the original sources before inclusion.

[1] Aberdeen Group. Cited in: FounderJar. (2024). The Ultimate List of ERPStatistics for 2025. FounderJar. https://www.founderjar.com/erp-statistics/ — Only 23% of medium-sized companies use the native workflow management features of their ERP.

[2] McKinsey Global Institute. (2012). The Social Economy. Cited in: Valamis. (2023). Why Do We Spend All That Time Searching for Information AtWork? https://www.valamis.com/blog/why-do-we-spend-all-that-time-searching-for-information-at-work — Employees waste up to 9.3 hours a week searching for information and coordinating approvals.

[3] Commport. (2024). 11 EDI-ERP Integration Mistakes That Cost Companies Millions.Commport. https://www.commport.com/11-edi-erp-integration-mistakes-that-cost-companies-millions/ — 45% of the time spent on internal management processes could be automated with the right tools.

[4] ERPFocus/Ziff Davis. (2023). ERP User Satisfaction Survey. Quoted in: Blue Link ERP. (2024). 75 Must-Know ERP Statistics and Trends. https://www.bluelinkerp.com/blog/must-know-erp-statistics-trends/ — 80% of ERP users say they are dissatisfied with the interface of their current system.

[5] WeWeb. (2024). Build Custom ERP Software With AI and No-Code. WeWeb. https://www.weweb.io/use-cases/erp — Technical description of how WeWeb allows you to build approval interfaces with conditional logic connected to the ERP backend.

[6] Forrester Research. Cited in: Hostinger. (2025). 26 No-code and Low-codeTrends for 2025. Hostinger. https://www.hostinger.com/tutorials/low-code-trends — 70% savings in development costs with no-code tools compared to traditional development or ERP customization.

[7] Devintellecs. (2024). Top Insurance Challenges & How ERP Fixes Them.Devintellecs. https://www.devintellecs.com/blog/odoo-functional-6/top-insurance-company-challenges-and-how-erp-fixes-them-290 — Analysis of workflow gaps in medium-sized insurers: policy approval, claims and regulatory compliance.

[8] HotWaxCommerce. (2024). ERP vs OMS: Finding the Right Balance in OmniChannel Retailing. Hotwax. https://www.hotwax.co/blog/erp-vs-oms-finding-the-right-balance-in-omnichannel-retailing — Price approval and return flows in multichannel retail require an agility that ERP batch processing doesn't allow.

[9] Space-o Technologies. (2024). How to Develop an Insurance ERP Software: ADetailed Guide. Space-O Technologies. https://www.spaceotechnologies.com/blog/insurance-erp-software-development/ — Midsize insurers manage agent commissions with override and scaling structures that standard modules don't support.

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