Who Can Approve What: Approval Matrices, Spending Limits, Escalation, and Delegated Authority for Small Businesses

Your people know how to do the work. They still need the owner to approve every refund, purchase, discount, contract, payment, access change, and public statement. The missing part is a written answer to who may decide, under what conditions, and on what evidence. Who Can Approve What shows you how to turn actual decisions into a working approval matrix. Start with exact actions instead of job titles. Find where each authority comes from. Separate who requests, advises, decides, performs, verifies, and receives notice. Set limits using amount, total exposure, reversibility, and nonfinancial consequences. You will define the evidence required for each decision, assign primary and backup authority, set response times, and create routes for conflicts, absences, exceptions, and emergencies. Separate spending approval from contract signature, technical access from business authority, and task delegation from permission to bind the business. The book includes an action catalog, approval request log, complete authority row, temporary delegation record, scenario tests, implementation audit, and AI product test. It covers purchases, payments, refunds, prices, contracts, people actions, record changes, software access, and public statements. This is a working manual, not a promise that the business will run itself. Test the rules against recent cases before changing bank access, accounting permissions, contract systems, or software controls. Use AI to compare records and prepare drafts, but never to grant authority, approve an action, or replace an accountable person.