The walkthrough
78.7 seconds. Captions are included in the film. Made with Nolan from an editable screenplay running in a real browser.
What the requester said
“Because some companies have more than 1 directors/managers, so this feature will improve users’ workflow in approving the bills within Xero.”
Verbatim from the Xero Product Ideas board. Reproduced as a contiguous extract and checked against the harvested record.
Key moments
- Add a second approval stage to the bills workflow.
- Decide how bills approved under the old process should be treated.
- Show how the new status affects payment totals and audit history.
What we concluded
Has wider trade-offs
A second approval stage also needs migration rules, new statuses, and a clear audit trail.
The approval button is only the visible part of the change.
Why we reached that conclusion
A second level of approval could be valuable for organisations that need stronger payment controls. The prototype also showed how much work sits behind the extra button.
Existing bills need a migration rule. In our scenario, 48 bills had already been approved under the old process. An organisation would need to decide whether they remain payable or return for another approval. Either choice changes the meaning of the new control on its first day.
Unapprove needs a defined destination. Once two approval stages exist, reversing an approval could return a bill to either stage. The product would need to make that choice explicit.
The audit trail is part of the feature. A multi-stage approval process is useful only if an organisation can later show who approved each stage. In the board snapshot we analysed, the related audit-report request was not in the pipeline.
The new status affects the rest of the product. Filters, reports, totals, and API consumers all rely on the existing status model. In the prototype, bills waiting for second approval no longer belonged in the Awaiting Payment total, which changed that example total by 35,405.00.
This request had fewer votes than the other bills request in our selection, but it affected far more of the product. Vote count and implementation scope measure different things.