Maker-Checker Approvals: The Workflow Auditors Wish Every Firm Had
How request → review → approve workflows enforce segregation of duties, keep a tamper-evident audit log, and end the wait for access — without slowing anyone down.
In most firms, sensitive changes just happen. Someone edits a client record, shares a file, deletes a folder — and if anyone asks later, the honest answer is a shrug. Maker-checker flips that: nothing sensitive happens until a second set of eyes approves it. It's the control auditors look for first, and the one shared drives simply cannot offer.
How it works: requested → reviewed → approved
The person who initiates a change (the maker) raises a request. A reviewer (the checker) approves or rejects it. Every step lands in the audit log with who, what and when. That's segregation of duties — not as a policy document, but enforced by the system itself.
The part people get wrong: it's faster, not slower
Teams fear approval workflows will add bureaucracy. In practice they remove it. Need access to a client you're not assigned to? Instead of chasing a manager over email and waiting days, you raise a request and it flows through review in the same system, on the record. Nobody waits on anybody — the queue does the chasing.
What should go through maker-checker
- Client and master-data changes
- Client data access for unassigned staff
- File and folder sharing beyond the firm
- Timesheet and disbursement approvals
- Task requests — approved before work starts
The audit log underneath it all
Approvals are only half the story. Every action, in every module, should land in a tamper-evident log: who did it, what changed, and when. When a peer review or regulator asks, the answer is a filter, not an investigation.
SyncOffice builds maker-checker and the audit log into every module — one secure cloud platform that runs your entire back office, built for every business that runs on trust.