Keeping Delegations and Signature Authority in Sync Across Entities and Accounts

How to prevent misalignment between approval authority and execution authority - especially across multiple legal entities, bank accounts, and contract types.

For a primer on what signatory lists are and why they fail, see Authorized Signatory Lists Explained.

Definition: Authority alignment is the practice of ensuring that approval authority (who can approve a commitment), execution authority (who can sign or execute it), and system entitlements (who has access to perform the action) remain consistent across all organizational systems and counterparty records.

One of the most common "quiet risks" in authority programs is misalignment between approval authority and execution authority. Organizations often control approvals better than signatures — until they discover counterparties have different views of who can sign.

Why misalignment happens

A few patterns show up again and again:

According to West Monroe's 2026 research, 44 percent of executives cite bureaucratic processes as the top cause of slow decisions. When alignment is broken, organizations experience both speed problems (rejected transactions, manual re-approvals) and control problems (unauthorized execution) simultaneously.

A practical alignment model

Start with a simple rule of thumb: execution authority should never exceed approval authority for the same commitment.

There are exceptions, but even then the system should be able to prove that approvals existed and were correct.

The three authority layers and how they drift

Authority LayerWhat It ControlsWhere It LivesCommon Drift Pattern
Approval authority (decision right)Who can approve a commitmentDOA matrix, authority systemUpdated during annual review; out of date within months
Execution authority (signature right)Who can sign or execute an instrumentSignatory lists, bank mandatesUpdated on request; often lags role changes by weeks or months
System entitlement (access right)Who has access to perform the actionERP, banking portals, CLM systemsProvisioned at onboarding; rarely de-provisioned promptly

When these three layers diverge, you get the full range of authority failures: people who can approve but can't execute, people who can execute but shouldn't be able to, and people who have system access but no formal authority for what they're doing.

Our recommendation: Build reconciliation between these three layers into your operating cadence. A monthly check comparing delegation records to signatory lists to system entitlements — even for a sample of high-risk roles — catches drift before it creates incidents.

The three alignment questions to answer

  1. What must be approved before it can be signed? Define the preconditions for execution.
  2. Who can execute, and under what scope? Signing authority should be scoped by entity, instrument type, region, threshold, and time.
  3. Where is the record of authority maintained? If signatory lists live in PDFs and approvals live in systems, you will always be reconciling after the fact.

Recommended controls to keep approvals and signatures aligned

Where Aptly helps

For the systems integration perspective on drift prevention, see Avoiding Sync Drift.

Aptly can serve as a central, governed repository for authority rules and signatory lists, with controlled issuance, effective dating, and searchable access. When paired with integrations, it helps reduce the "three different sources of truth" problem that drives misalignment.

Frequently asked questions

What is the most common cause of misalignment between approval and signing authority?

Independent ownership. When one team owns the DOA matrix and a different team owns signatory lists with no systematic reconciliation, the two inevitably drift. The fix is not necessarily merging ownership, but establishing a shared source of truth and a regular alignment check between the two.

How do you align authority across multiple legal entities?

Scope every authority grant to specific legal entities. Use a single authority platform that supports entity-level rules, and ensure signatory lists and bank mandates explicitly reference entity scope. Multi-entity organizations that use a single generic authority structure almost always have alignment gaps at the entity level.

Should approval authority and signing authority always match exactly?

Not necessarily. Some organizations use operational signers who execute after approvals are documented — meaning signing authority is narrower than approval authority. The key principle is that execution authority should never exceed approval authority for the same commitment, and the system should be able to prove the approval chain for any signed instrument.

How often should alignment between approval and signing authority be checked?

Monthly for high-risk instruments (banking, large-value contracts), quarterly for moderate-risk categories, and at minimum annually for all authority. Event-driven checks should trigger on every termination, role change, new entity creation, and organizational restructuring.

Get started with Aptly.

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