---
title: "Capex requests with committee sign-off"
description: "Committee capex votes resolve on a majority, the CFO signs electronically, and auditors verify the certificate on their own."
category: "Finance and accounting"
updated: 2026-08-27
canonical: https://approvethis.com/docs/use-cases/capex-approvals
---

# Capex requests with committee sign-off

At a mid-market manufacturer, a healthcare administrator, or a multi-site services group, capital requests tend to get approved in a meeting. A plant manager pitches a new press line, heads nod, the purchase order goes out. Eight months later the auditors sample that spend and the controller is reconstructing the decision from calendar invites and memory: who actually approved it, against what business case, and whether the people who said yes had the authority to say it. A verbal yes leaves nothing to produce.

This walkthrough gives the CFO a capex workflow that leaves proof at every stage. A department head submits the request with the cost and the business case attached. The finance committee votes, and the step resolves on a majority so one traveling member never holds up the quarter. The CFO signs electronically before the decision records. The comment trail is locked against edits, and the approved request yields a certificate an auditor can verify on their own, with no ApproveThis account.

## What you'll set up

- A capex request form with a cost field and a business-case field
- A committee step with each finance leader added by name, set to **Majority must approve**
- A final CFO step with **Require E-Signature** turned on
- Comments locked after posting, so nobody can reword the discussion later
- A downloadable approval certificate with a verification link auditors can check independently

## The form, the committee, the signature

Start with the form, because it is what the committee will be judging. In the Form Builder, add a **Currency** field for the cost and a text field for the business case; the point is that every request arrives with its justification written down, not delivered across a conference table. Then switch to the flow's Workflow tab, where the approval chain is drawn, and add the committee step with **Add a new step below this one**. Approvers are named people: in **Search for an approver**, type each finance leader's name and click it to add them to the step.

![Adding an approver to the committee step by name — the example searches for Sam Porter](https://approvethis.com/docs-assets/manuals/add-approval-step/screenshots/add-approval-step-s1-02.png)

With the committee assembled, open the step's **Settings** and click **Majority must approve**. By default the step would wait on every approver; with the majority setting it resolves once a majority of its approvers have responded, and it can deny early — remaining pending approvals are auto-retracted at that point.

![Setting the committee step to Majority must approve in the step's Settings](https://approvethis.com/docs-assets/manuals/quorum-voting/screenshots/quorum-voting-s1-03.png)

Now add a second step below for the CFO, added the same way by name. In that step's **Settings**, click **Require E-Signature** so the final decision is signed, not clicked. The screenshot shows the example step from the manuals, which carries two approvers; on your single-approver CFO step the toggle works the same.

![Turning on Require E-Signature in the step's Settings](https://approvethis.com/docs-assets/manuals/add-approval-step/screenshots/add-approval-step-s3-03.png)

Full click-by-click: [Form Builder](https://approvethis.com/docs/manuals/form-builder.md), [Add an Approval Step](https://approvethis.com/docs/manuals/add-approval-step.md), [Quorum & Majority Voting](https://approvethis.com/docs/manuals/quorum-voting.md)

## Lock the discussion before the first request

Committee deliberation is part of the audit record, so it needs the same protection as the decisions. In the flow's Settings tab, open **Comments**, click **Enable comments**, then **Lock comments after posting**, then **Save**. Once locked, posted comments and replies can no longer be edited or deleted. The setting applies to this flow only, so your capex trail is tamper-proof without changing how the rest of the workspace discusses requests.

![Locking comments after posting in the flow's comment settings](https://approvethis.com/docs-assets/manuals/immutable-comments/screenshots/immutable-comments-s1-03.png)

Full click-by-click: [Immutable Comments](https://approvethis.com/docs/manuals/immutable-comments.md)

## A department head submits an equipment request

When a department head needs the spend, they open the workflow's form — from the flow's New Request button or a link you share — fill in the cost and write the business case, and click **Submit**. The example screenshots show an expense report form, where a **What was purchased** description plays the role your business-case field will; the mechanics are identical.

![Describing the request in the example form's What was purchased field — your capex form's business-case field works the same way](https://approvethis.com/docs-assets/manuals/submit-a-request/screenshots/submit-a-request-s1-03.png)

Once submitted, the committee members are notified, and everything they need to decide is in the request rather than in a meeting.

Full click-by-click: [Submit a Request](https://approvethis.com/docs/manuals/submit-a-request.md)

## The committee votes from their inboxes

Each committee member receives the approval email, and the **Approve** link in it records the decision without a separate sign-in — the link carries a signed URL that logs them in for that single action. One caveat worth knowing in a finance team: auto-login does not apply if the approver has 2FA enabled or the flow requires approvers to log in; in those cases they are asked to sign in first, then the decision records the same way.

![Approving directly from the notification email](https://approvethis.com/docs-assets/manuals/login-free-approval-links/screenshots/login-free-approval-links-s2-01.png)

Here the majority setting earns its keep: the step passes as soon as a majority of its approvers approve, and the rest are released without acting. The absent committee member on a plant visit never becomes the bottleneck, and the recorded votes still show exactly who weighed in.

Full click-by-click: [Login-Free Approval Links](https://approvethis.com/docs/manuals/login-free-approval-links.md)

## The CFO signs the decision of record

When the committee step resolves, the request reaches the CFO. Because the step requires an e-signature, clicking **Approve** opens a signature prompt instead of recording a bare click: the CFO types their name in **Full name** and clicks **Sign & Approve**. ApproveThis stores a tamper-evident audit context alongside the decision — the signer's name, signature type, consent version, signing method, the request IP address and user-agent, and a SHA-256 hash of the request's field values at signing time. That is the answer to the auditor's authority question: this person, this justification, this moment.

![Signing the approval — the example records the decision as Signed as: Noor Haddad](https://approvethis.com/docs-assets/manuals/e-signature/screenshots/e-signature-s1-03.png)

Full click-by-click: [E-Signature](https://approvethis.com/docs/manuals/e-signature.md)

## Proof the auditor can check without you

On the approved request, the green approved bar carries the payoff. The department head, as requester, clicks **Download Certificate** to save a PDF record of the approval — the document you hand to an auditor instead of a meeting recollection.

![Downloading the approval certificate from the green approved bar](https://approvethis.com/docs-assets/manuals/approval-certificates/screenshots/approval-certificates-s1-01.png)

The certificate carries a public verification link in two forms, a QR code and the printed URL at the foot of the page. An auditor scans or types it and the page confirms the approval is genuine with **Certificate Verified** — no ApproveThis account needed, no call to your team. Each certificate download and each visit to the verification page is itself recorded in the request's [Activity Log](https://approvethis.com/docs/manuals/activity-log.md), so you can see when copies were taken and checked.

![The public verification page confirming the certificate is genuine](https://approvethis.com/docs-assets/manuals/approval-certificates/screenshots/approval-certificates-s2-01.png)

The same shape carries a nonprofit's grant spending. Program managers submit expenditures; a condition on the committee step ([Conditional & Threshold Routing](https://approvethis.com/docs/manuals/conditional-threshold-routing.md)) skips committee review below a spend threshold, so small spends stop with the executive director's step, while the large ones go to the board finance committee set to **Majority must approve** — one traveling board member never stalls a program.

Full click-by-click: [Approval Certificates](https://approvethis.com/docs/manuals/approval-certificates.md)

## Related guides

- [Conditional & Threshold Routing](https://approvethis.com/docs/manuals/conditional-threshold-routing.md) — gate the committee step so it only runs above a capex threshold.
- [Activity Log & Audit Trail](https://approvethis.com/docs/manuals/activity-log.md) — read the per-request timeline of decisions, routing, and notifications.
- [Workflow Comments](https://approvethis.com/docs/manuals/workflow-comments.md) — the @-mention discussion that the lock setting makes tamper-proof.
- [Request & Activity Export (CSV / Excel)](https://approvethis.com/docs/manuals/request-export.md) — hand a whole year of capex history to an auditor as a spreadsheet.
- [Flow Watchers](https://approvethis.com/docs/manuals/flow-watchers.md) — give the controller full visibility of capex requests without a seat in the approval chain.