How Much Does “Waiting for Approval” Actually Cost You Each Month?
Most businesses don’t track the cost of waiting. By the end of this, you can answer the question “how much does waiting for approval actually cost you each month?”
They track sales, wages, and overheads. But one of the biggest drains on productivity sits quietly in the background, slowing everything down without showing up on a report.
Waiting for approval.
It sounds harmless. A quick sign off here, a delayed response there. But when approvals are not controlled, they create a constant drag across the entire business.
And that drag has a real cost.
The hidden cost of “just waiting”
When work sits waiting for approval, nothing else can move forward.
Projects pause. Clients wait. Staff chase updates. Deadlines slip.
The real problem is not the delay itself. It is what happens around it.
People follow up with emails. They check for updates. They switch to other tasks. Then they come back later and try to pick things up again.
That stop start pattern destroys efficiency.
Over time, it becomes normal.
A simple way to calculate the “waiting for approval” cost
You do not need complex systems to understand the impact. A basic estimate will show you enough.
Start with three simple questions:
- How many approvals happen each week?
- How long does each one typically sit waiting?
- How many people are involved in that process?
Now apply a rough calculation.
If 20 approvals each week sit for an average of 2 hours, and each one involves 2 people at £20 per hour, the cost looks like this:
20 approvals × 2 hours × 2 people × £20 = £1,600 per week
That is over £6,000 per month.
And that is just the visible time.
It does not include rework, delays to billing, or missed opportunities.
Where approvals usually break down
Most businesses do not have a clear approval system. Instead, approvals live in:
Emails
Teams messages
Shared drives
Verbal conversations
Paper documents
When approvals rely on a mix of digital systems and paper files, delays become inevitable. Many businesses remove this friction by digitising records and creating a structured, searchable system through document scanning services.
That creates confusion.
People are unsure where to send requests. Approvers miss things. There is no visibility of what is waiting or how long it has been there.
The result is predictable.
Things get stuck.
The real issue with “waiting for approval cost” is not people
It is easy to assume approvals are slow because people are busy or not responding quickly enough.
In most cases, that is not true.
The real issue is a lack of structure. This is a common pattern across growing businesses, and it is explained in more detail in our guide on
There is no single place for approvals. No clear ownership. No expectation on turnaround time. No visibility.
So the process relies on memory and effort.
That is where it fails.
This is exactly the kind of operational friction that sits behind most productivity problems, as explained in our main guide on why adding headcount does not fix productivity issues.
Why hiring more staff makes this worse
When approvals are slow, many businesses respond by adding more people.
More admin support. More coordinators. More managers.
It feels like the right move.
But it often makes the problem worse.
More people means more handovers. More communication. More versions of the same request. This idea is well known in operations and is often explained through Brooks’s Law, which shows how adding people to a delayed process can actually slow it down.
Without fixing the process, you are just increasing the number of people involved in the delay.
This is a well understood issue in operations. Even in software development, Brooks’s Law shows that adding people to a delayed process can slow it down further due to coordination overhead.
What a controlled approval process looks like
Fixing approvals does not require a big system or a long project.
It requires clarity.
A controlled approval process has four simple elements:
One place where all approvals are submitted
Clear requirements so requests are complete
Defined ownership for who approves
A clear expectation for turnaround time
That is it.
Once those are in place, everything changes.
Work flows instead of waiting.
Quick improvements you can make today
You can improve approval speed quickly with a few practical changes.
Choose one process that causes delays. It could be invoices, contracts, or internal requests.
Then do the following:
Create one location where all approvals are sent
Standardise what must be included in the request
Set a clear expectation for response time
Add a simple follow up rule if no response is given
These steps remove most of the friction immediately.
Why this matters more than you think
Delays in approval do not just slow internal work.
They affect cash flow, client experience, and team morale.
Invoices sent late mean cash comes in late.
Projects delayed reduce client confidence.
Staff frustration increases when work constantly stalls.
Over time, this creates a business that feels busy but does not move forward.
Fixing approvals often unlocks more value than hiring another person.
A better way to approach productivity
Most productivity issues are not caused by a lack of effort.
They are caused by work getting stuck.
Approvals are one of the most common places where that happens.
If you can see where work is waiting, you can fix it.
If you fix it, the business moves faster without increasing cost.
A quick self check
If you want to understand whether approvals are affecting your business, ask yourself:
Do we know what is currently waiting for approval?
Can we see how long each item has been waiting?
Is there a clear owner for each approval?
Do people chase approvals regularly?
If the answer to any of these is no, there is likely a cost sitting in your process right now.
Where to go next
If you want to understand where time is being lost across your business, approvals are a good place to start.
But they are rarely the only issue.
Most businesses have a mix of bottlenecks, duplicated work, and unclear processes that all add up.
That is why a structured review is often the fastest way to get clarity.
DocR helps businesses identify where work is getting stuck, quantify the impact, and fix the processes in a way that actually sticks.
If you are seeing delays, chasing, or constant back and forth, it is worth understanding what that is really costing you.
Because once you see the number, it is very hard to ignore.