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For finance teams

Approval before signature, and proof of both

The auditor’s question is never “was it signed?”. It is “who approved it, when, and can you show me?”

A finance officer sorting a clipped stack of paper receipts beside a calculator.

What this looks like today

Approval happens in email and lands nowhere

A forwarded “yes, go ahead” is the entire control, and it lives in one person’s mailbox.

Sequence is assumed, not enforced

Nothing stops the contract being signed before finance has looked at it.

Year-end means reconstructing a paper trail

Weeks of it, from threads and memory.

What Baton does about it

  1. 1

    Make the approver a step, not a courtesy

    An approver is a real recipient with a real routing number. Nobody after them is emailed until they have acted.

  2. 2

    Record the approval in the chain

    It becomes an event alongside the signatures: same trail, same hashing, same certificate.

  3. 3

    Answer the auditor from one screen

    Filter to the period, open the trail, read it as sentences. It says who approved, who signed, and when.

What is true right now

Every line below describes something the product does today. Nothing on this page is a roadmap item wearing a feature’s clothes.

  • An approver approves without signing; the certificate records both roles distinctly.
  • A decline halts the workflow and nobody downstream is emailed.
  • Cancelling notifies everyone already involved and nobody who was not.
  • The chain is verifiable by anyone holding the document, including your auditor.

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