Castine announces user-configurable approval workflows its Commissioner compensation and profitability system for retail and institutional brokers. Managers can now set up multi-step workflows to manage the complex process of approving incentive compensation while ensuring the proper people are involved.

Each step is logged for auditing purposes, and tracks whether the step was approved or rejected by each person in the workflow with a time stamp. Should an approval be withheld, the system’s rules prevent payroll information from being accidentally sent to the payroll team or an external payroll processor. Users can configure unique email templates for each step and role involved in the process.

The system is integrated into Commissioner, which manages different compensation grids or rules for each team and generates incentive compensation statements for all individuals involved including managers, traders, advisors and their teams. As that process evolves, the approval workflow takes over and distributes the appropriate summary and detail information to a preset list of people who will approve or be notified of the actions to be undertaken in the required order. “The configuration flexibility of the approval workflow to permit “hard” approvals and “soft” notifications is tremendously popular with our clients,” states Tom Smith, Castine’s Executive Vice President.

Each approval flow is independent of every other one, with unique assignments as to the proper team, desk, or department, the associated statement type, and who is a required signatory or who is only supposed to be notified that an approval process is underway. Many firms utilize manual flowcharts to attempt to track each step along the process. With Castine’s automated approval workflow, that flowchart enters into the actual steps that the system undertakes for each payroll, ensuring 100% compliance to the appropriately designed steps. All historical approvals and rejections with audit trails and attachments are all saved in one central place making it easy for management and stakeholders to review.

The approval workflow is available for non-payroll processes as well; for more information on this unique solution, please contact Castine at lm@CastineLLC.com.

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