Cost review workflow

Review cadence, submission lock periods, and the budget approval rules that govern who can change a budget.

The cost review workflow is split across two settings pages because it covers two different concerns:

Settings page	What it configures
Cost review (/settings/cost-review)	Effort review cadence, submission lock periods, undo windows, AI effort analysis toggle
Budget workflow (/settings/budget-workflow)	Who can submit budget proposals, who approves them, and how routing works

Both feed the variance loop. The cost review page governs the underlying effort data quality. The budget workflow page governs how that data turns into approved budget changes.

Cost review (cadence)

Lands at /settings/cost-review/cadence. Four blocks:

Review cadence

How often effort review reminders fire:

Option	Pattern
Off	No reminders
Weekly	Every Friday
Fortnightly	Every other Friday (odd ISO weeks)

The cadence drives in-app and email reminders to people with effort to log. It does not block submission outside the cadence — late effort still flows in.

Submission lock period

How far back people can submit or edit effort allocations:

No lock | 2 weeks | 1 month | 2 months | 3 months | 6 months

Periods older than the lock are read-only. Default is 1 month. The lock applies to everyone except admins.

WARNING

The lock is enforced server-side. Increasing the lock window does not retroactively unlock previously locked periods — those stay locked at their original boundary.

Withdraw window

How long after submission a person can withdraw their own effort row. Configurable from 1 hour up to 1 month, plus Disabled and No limit. Default is 24 hours.

Undo approval window

How long after an approval the approver can undo it. Same value range as withdraw. Used when a manager approves an effort row, then realises the person was on a different project that week.

AI effort analysis

A toggle that enables the AI to suggest effort splits based on observed activity (calendar, PR data, AI usage). Off by default. Per-org setting.

Budget workflow

Lands at /settings/budget-workflow. Configures how budget requests get routed and approved.

Approval mode

Two modes:

Mode	Routing
Parent team manager	Each proposal routes to the team's parent team's manager. Org-tree-driven. Auto-updates when the org tree changes
Specific people	Each proposal routes to a fixed list of named approvers, regardless of org tree

PARENT_TEAM_MANAGER is the right default for most orgs because it follows the natural reporting structure. SPECIFIC_PEOPLE is right when finance owns budget approvals end-to-end.

Approver lists

Three separate lists, each populated with named users:

• Specific approvers — used when approval mode is SPECIFIC_PEOPLE. Routes every proposal to these people.
• Final approvers — the people who can finalise a request once every proposal is approved. Typically a small group: CFO, CTO, Head of FP&A.
• Financial approvers — people who can approve proposals where the cost delta exceeds an org-wide threshold. Provides an extra gate on large changes.

Saving the workflow

Save replaces the entire configuration in one go. After each save the page re-reads the workflow from the server so what you see matches what's live.

Permissions

Both pages require SETTINGS_FINANCIAL_CONFIG_*. Approving individual budget proposals or finalising requests is checked at the per-mutation level against the configured approver lists.

Related

• Variance overview — how cost review feeds the variance loop.
• Budget requests — the workflow this page configures.
• CapEx approval workflow — the equivalent setup for capitalisation.
• R&D approval workflow — the equivalent setup for R&D claims.