A practical primer on Delegation of Authority (DOA): what it is, where it lives, and the real-world signs your authority structure has drifted out of date.
In one sentence: Delegation of Authority (DOA) is how an organization defines who can approve, commit, and execute decisions - and under what limits - so work can move quickly without losing control.
What Delegation of Authority actually covers
DOA usually spans two buckets:
- Financial authority: spending approvals, purchase commitments, write-offs, capital approvals, credit and discount thresholds, payments.
- Non-financial authority: hiring decisions, policy exceptions, contract term exceptions, risk acceptance, access to sensitive actions, project change approvals.
It’s tempting to treat DOA as a finance artifact. In practice, it’s broader: it’s your organization's “permission system” for high-impact actions.
The artifacts that make DOA real (and why they go out of sync)
Most companies run DOA using some combination of:
- A policy that defines principles and governance (scope, definitions, ownership, exceptions).
- An authority matrix that lays out decision categories, thresholds, and who can approve.
- Role or individual delegations that translate the matrix into something a person can actually use.
- Workflow rules in systems like ERP, procurement, CLM, treasury tools - where approvals happen day-to-day.
The common failure mode is not “we don’t have DOA.” It’s that the policy, matrix, delegations, and workflow rules quietly become different versions of the truth.
Why DOA drifts (even in mature organizations)
Authority drift is rarely malicious. It’s operational gravity:
- Re-orgs change reporting lines, roles, and responsibilities faster than governance updates.
- New entities and bank accounts get added during growth, then never fully integrated into the authority model.
- Temporary coverage becomes semi-permanent (“just while we hire a replacement”).
- System workarounds pop up (email approvals, spreadsheets, one-off access) when the official process is slow.
- M&A integration introduces multiple authority standards that never get rationalized.
Drift matters because it creates a gap between what leadership believes is controlled and what is actually happening.
The signs your DOA is becoming a business problem
You’ll usually see drift before you “prove” it:
- Approvals stall because no one is sure who can sign off.
- People route approvals to the same two executives “just to be safe.”
- Procurement and finance enforce one set of limits, while business units use another.
- Auditors ask for evidence of approvals and you scramble to reconstruct who had authority at the time.
- Counterparties (banks, vendors, partners) receive out-of-date signatory lists.
If any of this feels familiar, you don’t necessarily need a new policy. You need a better operating model around authority.
A quick DOA health check (10 minutes)
Pick one common decision type (e.g., vendor contract approvals) and test these questions:
- Can a manager quickly find the rule that applies to their scenario?
- Can the organization explain why a limit exists (risk, delegation philosophy, business model)?
- Can you prove who had authority on a specific date, including temporary coverage?
- Do your systems route approvals the same way your matrix says they should?
- Are changes reviewed and approved by the right stakeholders - every time?
A “no” on any of these is normal. The goal is to make the gaps visible and then systematically close them.
Where Aptly helps (without changing your governance philosophy)
Aptly is designed to make authority usable in the real world:
- Centralize authority matrices so teams can search decision rights instead of hunting through documents.
- Track issuance and acknowledgment so people can attest they’ve received and understood their authority.
- Maintain version history and audit logs so you can reconstruct authority “as of” a point in time.
- Support time-based delegation and transfers so coverage is explicit and expires when it should.
Next step: If you’re starting from scratch, read How to Build a Delegation of Authority Matrix. If you already have a matrix, start with DOA and SOX/Internal Controls (Q&A) to pressure-test what evidence you can produce.
