Every vendor request you approve without a real process?

That's $600 up in smoke.

Not hypothetically. In real hours. Real dollars. Real distractions from strategic work.

At just 10 vendor requests a month, you're silently leaking $72,000/year.

That’s a full-time hire.One less month of runway.One less chance to hit plan.

And the kicker?Most finance teams don’t even know it’s happening.

But here’s the good news: it’s 100% preventable — if you’ve got the right blueprint.

Let’s break it down.

What Is a Vendor Request & Approval Process?

A vendor request and approval (R&A) process is how your company evaluates, vets, and greenlights new vendors — before money moves, contracts are signed, or risk walks through the front door.

When it works:

✅ Finance gets visibility
✅ Legal stays ahead of risk
✅ Teams stay aligned on budget and goals

When it doesn’t:

❌ Surprise invoices
❌ Missed renewals
❌ Slack chaos and last-minute fire drills

And the biggest issue?Most orgs think they have a process… until an audit or renewal reveals they don’t.

Let’s Talk About the $72K Problem

Here’s the math:

Now multiply that by 10 vendor requests/month = $72,000/year.

That number scales fast as your team — and tooling — grows.

And it’s not just theoretical:

• Senior managers spend up to 30% of their time chasing approvals, leading to productivity loss and workflow breakdowns. (source: Venminder)
• Manual workflows cost companies 35% more per invoice compared to automated processes. (source: Cflow Apps)
• One audit uncovered $17,000 in unauthorized charges caused by a broken intake process. (source: Procurify)

When Chaos Becomes a Cost Center

I’ve seen it up close.

At a previous company, I stepped in as VP of Marketing and inherited a vendor mess.

No documentation. No ownership. Just a stack of auto-renewing contracts — and no one knew where the originals were.

Three of them — totaling north of $65K — were up for renewal in 90 days.

And each one broke our new procurement rules:

• No multi-year terms
• No auto-renewals
• No price increases

Guess what they all had?

This wasn’t a legal failure.
It was a visibility failure.
A process failure.

And it’s not just common. It’s predictable.

The Real Damage: Forecasts, Runway, and Risk

If your process lives in Slack threads or scattered emails, here’s what you’re really losing:

• Forecasting fails – Spend hits late, wrecking predictability
• Budget trust erodes – Surprise deals = broken alignment
• Runway shrinks – Course-corrections come after the money’s gone
• Audit exposure grows – No trail, no docs, no defense

And it gets worse:

• Fragmented vendor onboarding causes delays and stalls projects, leaving vendors in limbo and teams bottlenecked. (source: The KYB)
• Missed discounts and late payments from slow approvals increase costs and reduce buying power. (source: Vendr)
• Maverick spend and duplicate vendors drive up cost and risk when teams bypass legal-reviewed contracts. (source: Whatfix)

Friction Isn’t a Fix

Here’s what usually happens when finance tries to fix the chaos:

More fields.
More approvals.
More rules.
More spreadsheets.

But friction doesn’t solve chaos.It just makes teams skip the process entirely.

What High-Performing Teams Do Instead

You don’t need a heavy procurement system.You need a simple, repeatable structure — a process people actually follow.

The Bulletproof Vendor Request & Approval Checklist

Use this checklist to tighten your vendor process today — no software required. Copy, share, or drop it in your Notion workspace.

Step 1: Define the Policy

• Who can request a vendor?
• Who approves based on spend?
• When does legal get involved?
• What are the approval thresholds (by cost, contract type, data risk)?

Step 2: Build a Smarter Intake Form

Every vendor request should capture:

• Vendor name + description
• Estimated annual spend
• Business justification
• Alternatives considered
• Systems/data the vendor will touch
• Attachments (contract, SOC 2, DPA, etc.)

Step 3: Route Approvals Automatically

• Budget → if spend > $X
• Legal → if custom terms or redlines
• Security → if vendor touches sensitive data
• Exec signoff → if strategic, high-risk, or long-term

Step 4: Enforce Documentation

• Contract draft or redlines
• NDAs or MSAs
• Security documentation
• Procurement checklist

Step 5: Make It Findable

• Request form pinned in Slack or onboarding
• Policy shared org-wide
• Budgeting reminders sent quarterly
• Process reviewed every quarter

Bonus: Assign a quarterly review. Vendor chaos creeps in when no one’s watching.

Where This Takes You

When you implement a structured R&A process, you’re not just reducing chaos — you’re unlocking measurable ROI:

• 50% reduction in approval cycle times with automation = vendors onboarded in days, not weeks (source: SupplierGateway)
• 30% higher policy adherence, leading to fewer rogue purchases and better spend discipline (source: SoftCo)
• A mid-sized manufacturer saved $220,000/year by automating intake, reducing errors, and cutting cycle time by 45% (source: VendorRisk)
• Dashboards improve procurement visibility and flag inefficiencies before they become problems (source: AllstarSS)

Or, Just Skip the Manual Work Entirely

You can build it all from scratch — policy docs, forms, spreadsheets, Slack workflows. It’ll work... eventually.

Or you can launch a tool that does it all in just a few days:

Meet Stackpack’s Requests & Approvals

• Smart Intake – Smarter forms with enforced policy, no guesswork
• Auto-Routing – Right request → right stakeholder → full context
• Conditional Logic – Approvals adjust based on spend, risk, or vendor type
• Real-Time Tracking – See exactly where every request stands

This isn’t a band-aid workflow.
It’s a finance-first control system — designed to scale with you.

Think Your Vendor Process Is Airtight? Test it Out.

Already have something in place? Great.
Run your next vendor request through Stackpack and see how it stacks up.

Even if you don’t make a switch today, chances are you’ll walk away with a few best practices you can adopt tomorrow — and spot the small leaks before they become costly fires.

This isn’t about replacing what’s working.It’s about leveling up what’s already there.

Take the interactive demo for a spin — no email needed, no sales pitch to sit through, just click around and see what's up.

And if you ever want a deeper look or help tailoring it to your org, we’re here for that too.

TL;DR

If your vendor process lives in Slack, spreadsheets, or shared memory — you’re bleeding money.

Build a real system. Or launch one in days.
Either way, stop the $72K leak before it gets bigger.