The department head approved the purchase, so the team sends the contract to that person to sign. That assumption can fail when spending approval and signing authority belong to different people. It can also fail when the agreement names a different subsidiary. A legal department needs a practical way to check the proposed signer against the actual document and the company’s approved authority records.
Identify the Decision Behind the Request
Connect each authorized signer to the relevant entity and supporting resolution, policy or other approved instrument. Record the effective date, stated expiry and restrictions. Distinguish authority to approve a business decision from authority to sign the resulting document. The two may belong to different people.
Use separate fields for transaction type, amount, currency, geographic scope and any required prior reviews. Do not compress complicated conditions into a vague note such as “Management approval.” If the supporting document is unclear, flag the entry for legal review instead of converting ambiguity into apparent permission.
| Question | Record to Check | Escalation Owner |
|---|---|---|
| Can the Business Approve the Transaction? | The applicable approval policy and recorded approval. | Authorized business decision maker. |
| Can This Person Bind This Entity? | Confirmed entity authority and any restrictions. | Responsible legal or governance reviewer. |
| Can the Person Use the Signing System? | Approved access and sending instructions. | System owner and document coordinator. |
Apply the Distinction to a Subsidiary
Worked example: a U.S. group’s operations director can sign specified purchases for one subsidiary. A new agreement names another entity in the group. The coordinator checks the entity field and routes the mismatch to the responsible legal owner before sending the signature request. Seniority does not substitute for confirming the applicable authority.
Resolve Missing Authority Before Sending the Invitation
When an entry is incomplete, send the authority owner the entity name, proposed signer, document, amount, and reason the usual route does not fit. That is enough context to investigate the question. An informal discussion about who is available to sign should not become the authority record.
Connect role changes and departures to a review of the register and signature platform. Preserve superseded entries with their effective dates; they may be needed to understand an earlier signature. Confirm the authority relevant to the actual transaction before preparing the signing package.
Why Authority Should Be Defined
Federal contracting rules describe written delegations and limits on contracting officer authority. Private organizations follow their own governing documents and approved decisions, but the comparison highlights a useful recordkeeping principle: identify both the source of authority and its boundaries.
Check What the Signature Platform Is Allowed to Do
The person maintaining the authority register and the person configuring the signature platform may be different. Agree how an approved change reaches both. Test an employee departure, a changed approval limit, and a document naming another group entity. Check which requests are stopped and which are referred for review.
Keep the source of authority with the execution record. If a system administrator changes a routing rule, retain the instruction that authorized the change. This makes it possible to explain why an invitation reached a particular signer.