Sequential Review

Helping larger companies move expenses through staged approvals before finance review.

Sequential Review overview showing staged approvals.
Context

Pleo was moving upmarket. Larger companies needed staged expense approvals, but the existing review flow was too simple.

My role

I led product design and worked with product and engineering on workflow logic, statuses, scope, and delivery.

Problem

Manager and finance reviews happened in parallel. Finance teams saw expenses before they were ready. This created noise, delays, and unclear ownership.

What shipped

We introduced sequential review. Expenses now move through approval steps in order, and company reviewers only see expenses after first-level approval. We added clearer statuses and a Reviewers tab.

Parallel review problem state before sequential approval.
Finance review queue showing expenses before first-level approval.
Sequential Review workflow screen showing ordered approval steps.
Reviewers tab showing staged reviewer visibility.
Sequential Review status detail screen.

Tradeoffs

We shipped the core workflow first. Advanced filtering and workflow-builder logic came later. This reduced flexibility, but delivered value faster.

Outcome

  • €2.8m Projected additional MRR.
  • Gap closed Closed a key mid-market product gap.
  • Less noise Reduced premature finance reviews.

Learnings

✽ Clarity is part of the feature.

Statuses and reviewer visibility were as important as the workflow logic.

✽ Sequence mattered more than completeness.

Shipping the core sequence mattered more than building the perfect approval system.