Documents are lost at the seams, not in the archive
Companies are usually good at storing what is already finished: signed contracts sit in a folder, delivery notes are filed. What gets lost is different — the things that live between stages.
Below are the five places where this happens most often. Check how many of them you recognise.
1. An agreement that exists nowhere on paper
A department head approves a purchase in the corridor. A month later it turns out the amount has doubled, and nobody approved the new figure — because nobody approved the old one either.
Symptom: when you ask «who approved this», you get a name rather than a document.
What helps: approval is recorded in the same place the request is created. Not in a messenger, not over the phone — otherwise the picture cannot be reconstructed a month later.
2. A request in a spreadsheet everyone has their own copy of
The file «Requests_2026_final_v3.xlsx» exists in four versions: with the requester, with procurement, with accounting, and in the shared folder. All four differ.
Symptom: before a meeting somebody spends an hour reconciling tables.
What helps: a single register where a request has one status rather than four opinions about it. It is a boring solution, but it closes the problem completely.
3. Supplier quotes buried in email
Suppliers send prices by email. The procurement officer compares them in their head or in a notebook, picks one, and places the order. Six months later an audit asks: why this supplier?
The answer exists only in the mailbox — and the mailbox belongs to someone who has left.
Symptom: the justification for choosing a supplier is not stored anywhere in structured form.
What helps: quotes are attached to the request, with amount, currency and VAT. Comparison becomes part of the system rather than a private initiative.
4. The contract that «was somewhere»
The order is placed, the contract is signed — and stays as an email attachment. Only the amount makes it into the accounting system.
Symptom: to find the delivery terms you have to ask a specific person.
What helps: the file is attached to the order and lives alongside it. One detail matters here: files should not sit behind permanent public links. In BPM they are kept in separate storage and served through temporary links — an expired link will not open the document for an outsider.
5. A delivery you found out about afterwards
Goods arrive at the warehouse, the storekeeper accepts them and writes it in their notebook. Accounting learns about it a week later; procurement learns when the requester asks where their materials are.
Symptom: the «delivered» status appears in the system later than the goods physically arrived.
What helps: goods receipt is a process step just like approval. Until it is marked, the request is not considered closed.
The common denominator
In all five cases the problem is the same: part of the process lives outside the system. It does not matter where exactly — email, a messenger, a notebook, or someone's memory. As soon as a link drops out, the chain can only be rebuilt by asking people.
So when choosing a system, the question to ask is not «can it approve requests» but «where in my process will a gap remain after the rollout». If a gap remains, that is exactly where documents will keep going missing.
Want to find the gaps in your process? Get in touch — we will walk through them during a demo.