The approval ladder. Stop every decision routing to you.

The $340 Part

2:15 p.m. Your crew lead is at a job. The pump is bad. He texts you a photo of the part and the price. $340.

You are in a meeting. He waits. The homeowner waits. You glance at the phone, type "ok," and go back to the meeting. It took eleven seconds. It also happens four times a week.

Across the office, someone has a customer on hold who wants 5% off a repair. She cannot give it without asking you. So she writes your name on a sticky note.

Your team is not careless. They are careful, because nobody ever told them where the line is. So the line is you.

Why Trust Is the Wrong Fix

Most owners try to delegate by trusting more. "Just use your judgment." That sounds generous. To the crew lead it is a trap. He does not know if $340 is fine or if $340 is the number that gets him a phone call later. So he asks.

A written rule removes the guess. It says: up to this amount, you decide. Nobody has to read your mind, and nobody has to wait for your mood. The rule decides, and you wrote it once.

This is an operating rule, not legal or accounting advice. Your accountant may want a say in the top tiers. That is a good use of one conversation.

The Ladder

One page. Five rungs. These dollar amounts are examples for a service business doing a few million a year. Set yours so that most weekly decisions land on the lower rungs.

• Up to $50. Anyone on the team decides. Fuel, fittings, a lunch for a crew that ran long. Keep the receipt with the job. No other logging.
• $50 to $500. The crew lead or office lead decides. Log one line: date, amount, what, who. The $340 part lives here. The crew lead buys it, texts the photo to the shared log instead of to you, and keeps working.
• $500 to $5,000. The operations manager decides. Same one line in the log, plus the job or customer it belongs to. You see a weekly summary. You do not approve.
• $5,000 to $50,000. The manager writes a short request: what, why, cost, and what happens if you wait. You answer in writing within 24 hours. This is where your yes still matters.
• Over $50,000. You decide. The request comes as one page, the same format, with the numbers attached.

Some things stay with you at any amount. Hiring and firing. Borrowing. Signing a contract. Anything with a safety or legal edge. Anything the ladder does not cover. Write that list at the bottom of the page. Keep it short. If it grows past six lines, you have rebuilt the old routing.

Notice what the ladder does not say. It does not say the team cannot make mistakes. It says how big a mistake they are allowed to make without you.

Discounts and Schedule Changes

Money going out is half of it. Money not coming in is the other half. The office will not give a discount without asking, because nobody told them how much is theirs to give.

Use the same shape.

• Discounts. The office gives up to 5% on its own. The manager gives up to 10%. Past 10%, or past $500 off, it comes to you with a one-line reason.
• Schedule changes. The crew lead moves a job inside the same week. The manager moves it across weeks and calls the customer. You hear about it only if a job slips past a date the customer was promised in writing.

Pick numbers you can live with on your worst day. If a 5% discount from the office makes you flinch, set it at 3%. The point is that it is written, not that it is generous.

Roll It Out in a Week

• Monday. Pull last month's receipts, texts and approvals. Count how many decisions came to you and mark the ones under $500.
• Tuesday. Draft the ladder on one page. Use your own numbers. Add the list of things that always come to you.
• Wednesday. Walk your two or three lead people through it. Ask where it breaks. Change the numbers they push back on. Do not change who decides.
• Thursday. Set up the log. A shared sheet works. Date, amount, what, who, job. Print the page and put it in each truck and at the front desk.
• Friday. Announce it. One sentence: "From Monday, anything under $500 is yours, and you write it down." Then stop answering the old texts. Reply with the page.

The hard part is the second week. It is also the best practice for taking two weeks off, where the ladder is the first page you write. The first time a text arrives that the ladder already answers, you will want to answer it. Send the page instead. That is the whole habit.

Writing the rules down is the core of our approach, and the operations work is where we build them with you. An owner went from about 40 hours a week to about 20 after AI automations went in.

When the First Mistake Lands

It will land. A lead buys the wrong $400 part. The office gives a 10% discount that should have been 5%.

Do three things.

• Look at the log. Was the decision inside the rung? If yes, the rule worked and the outcome was bad. That is a cost of doing business. Say so out loud.
• Ask what information was missing. Fix the page or the checklist, not the person.
• If the decision was outside the rung, talk about the rung. Not the character.

The worst thing you can do is take the decision back. One reversal teaches the whole crew that the ladder is a suggestion, and the texts start again by Friday.

Later, the same page and log help in another room. Buyers now check in diligence whether the business and its systems run without the owner. A written rule and a month of logged decisions show the team already decides. If a sale is on your horizon, see Sell Ready.

Questions owners ask

What dollar amounts should I use for each tier?

Start from last month's decisions. Set the bottom rung so that about half of what reaches you today is covered, then set the next rung so that most of the rest is covered. The amounts in this article are examples. Your margins, job size and cash cushion decide yours.

What if my team does not want the authority?

Some will not, at first. They have learned that asking is safe. Make the rung small enough that using it is easy, and thank the first person who does. A written rule makes it safe to decide, because the rule is what they point to.

How do I keep track of decisions I am no longer approving?

One shared log and one weekly summary. Date, amount, what, who and the job. Read it for ten minutes on Friday. You are looking for patterns, such as the same part bought three times, not for permission slips.

How do I find out how many decisions still route to me?

Count them for a week. Or take the Vacation Test. It is 12 questions, about five minutes, and it tells you how many days the business runs without you and the first three things that break. You do not need to give an email to see the number.

Sources: BizBuySell, Q1 2026 AI report, on buyers checking in diligence whether the business and its systems run without the owner.