Stop Chasing Signatures: Automate Approvals and Paper Workflows

October 22, 2026 · Cortex Solutions

Purchase requests, expenses and approvals stuck in email and paper? A practical guide to automated workflows, WhatsApp alerts and connected systems with Cortex.

In many Saudi businesses, a simple purchase request still goes on a long journey: a form is printed or emailed, waits for a manager's signature, is re-entered by hand into the accounting system, and then the employee asks in a WhatsApp group: "Where is my request?" The same happens with expenses, leave, quotes and contracts. The result is wasted time, data-entry errors and late decisions because information did not arrive on time.

This article is a practical guide for business owners: how to tell that manual workflows cost you more than you think, how to move to automated workflows, and how Cortex Solutions helps you do it.

Signs your approvals need automation

• Employees ask more than once about their request because they cannot see where it stopped.
• The same data is typed two or three times: in the form, then in an Excel sheet, then in another system.
• A manager finds an urgent request days later because it was lost in email.
• Each of your systems works alone: sales in one tool, inventory in another, accounts in a third, and none of them talk to each other.
• You have no clear picture of how many requests are pending and who is slow to approve them.

If two or more of these apply to you, the problem is not your people but the process.

The solution: a clear workflow instead of a chain of messages

Automating approvals does not remove the manager's role. It means the right request reaches the right person at the right time, and data moves between systems on its own. Practical steps to start:

• Draw your current workflow on paper: who submits the request, who approves it, and which systems are updated afterwards.
• Define clear approval rules, such as who approves by request type, amount or department.
• Start with one high-frequency workflow, such as purchase requests or expenses, instead of trying to automate everything at once.
• Connect the workflow to the systems you actually use so no data is re-entered by hand.
• Send alerts where your team actually works: email and WhatsApp.
• Track results from one dashboard: how many requests were approved, how many are pending, and where delays happen.

How Cortex delivers it

Cortex Solutions offers a Process Automation service whose goal, as the company describes it, is to remove manual bottlenecks through custom automation workflows that sync your data and speed up your operations. Use cases include:

• Automating approvals and paper and financial transactions.
• Syncing records automatically between systems.
• Sending notifications and updates on time.

What Cortex delivers in this service: automated workflows for your team, instant alerts via email and WhatsApp, and a dashboard for your automated workflows. These workflows are built with technologies such as Node.js, Apache Airflow, Webhooks and Serverless Functions, and the expected delivery time is 4 to 6 weeks.

Service details: https://cortex.sa/services/process-automation

What about systems that don't talk to each other?

Often the deeper problem is that a business has good tools that are scattered. This is where Cortex's System Integration service comes in, aiming to unify scattered software into one integrated ecosystem through robust and secure integrations. It covers:

• Connecting applications that do not communicate with each other.
• Syncing data between tools automatically.
• Unified APIs for internal systems.

The outcome Cortex delivers: connected tools that work as one system, automatic data sync, and a unified view across your platforms. It uses technologies such as REST, GraphQL, gRPC and Message Queues, with an expected delivery time of 4 to 7 weeks.

Service details: https://cortex.sa/services/system-integration

A practical example

Imagine a purchase request in a multi-department business: the employee fills in the request once, an instant alert reaches the relevant manager on WhatsApp or email, and on approval the records in the connected systems are updated automatically and the requester is notified, while the dashboard shows pending requests for follow-up. No printing, no re-entry, and no more "Where is my request?"

If your needs go beyond automation, Cortex also builds custom enterprise web platforms: https://cortex.sa/services/custom-software

Start with one workflow this month

You do not need a big project to begin. Pick the workflow that consumes most of your team's time, and contact Cortex to study it and turn it into an automated workflow connected to your systems, with alerts that reach WhatsApp.

Request a quote now from the service page: https://cortex.sa/services/process-automation