Replacing Disconnected Financial Request Processes with a Unified Digital Platform

The Problem

Every team running its own financial process

At this regional county precinct, different operational teams were managing purchase requests and budget transfers using their own physical forms and email communication — each team running a slightly different process with no shared status visibility, no budget enforcement at the point of submission, no consistent signature workflow, and no centralized record of what had been submitted, approved, or was still pending.

For finance staff, this meant piecing together request status from inboxes and paper trails. For submitters, it meant uncertainty about where a request stood and who to follow up with. For leadership, it meant no reliable picture of financial request volume, cycle times, or budget exposure.

The Approach

Two surfaces, two audiences

The design decision was to build a platform with two distinct surfaces serving two distinct audiences. Submitters needed a simple, guided intake experience that enforced completeness and surfaced budget information before submission. Finance staff needed a management interface — not just a list of submissions, but a processing environment where they could review, act on, and track requests from intake through executed approval.

A single form-based solution would not serve both needs. Budget enforcement was placed at the front of the process — before a request reaches Finance — rather than treating it as a downstream correction. The legal execution step was built in through Adobe Acrobat Sign rather than left to email, ensuring every approved request produces a signed, complete document record.

The Solution

Guided intake, budget controls, e-signature, and a management interface

A single canvas app with dedicated screens for each request type — Request to Purchase (RTP) and Budget Transfer Request (BTR) — provides a structured submission experience. If the account balance associated with a purchase request is insufficient, the app hard-blocks the submission and surfaces a concurrent path to submit a BTR.

Once a request is submitted, Power Automate generates a formal PDF, bundles all supporting attachments, and initiates an Adobe Acrobat Sign agreement routed to two named signers. Both parties sign electronically, and the fully executed document package is delivered to Finance. Finance receives a complete, signed record ready for processing — not a queue notification.

A separate model-driven app — the Finance Request Manager — gives the finance team a centralized interface to track all requests by type, status, and stage, independent of the email delivery channel.

Outcomes

400+ requests. Budget enforcement. Organization-wide rollout.

Transferability

Where this pattern applies