The customer whose approver is on leave

The scenario

You chase the invoice and are told, politely, that the person who approves payments is on leave — for a fortnight, or longer — and nothing can be authorised until they return. Whoever you are speaking to is apologetic but firm: their hands are tied. The amount is fine, the relationship is fine, but the single approver is a genuine bottleneck, and you are being asked to simply wait an indefinite stretch while the account quietly ages past your terms.

What's really going on

Sometimes this is exactly true: many small businesses have one person who signs off payments, and when they are away, the queue stalls. But 'they're on leave' is also a tidy, sympathetic excuse that is hard to argue with and easy to stretch — a fortnight's leave can somehow become a month of delay. The two look identical from the outside. The useful response does not depend on telling them apart: you probe gently for an alternative path, and you anchor the account to a firm return date so that, genuine or not, the absence cannot become an open-ended hold.

Your options

You can:

• Accept it and wait. Risky if 'on leave' is elastic — the account drifts with no anchor.
• Look for another route. Ask whether anyone else can authorise, or whether a delegate or director can sign off in the meantime.
• Anchor to the return date. Confirm exactly when the approver is back and book a firm payment date immediately after.

Probing for an alternative while pinning the account to a specific return-and-pay date covers both possibilities at once.

Recommended approach

Be understanding, then test the edges. No problem — is there anyone who can authorise in their absence, or shall we book it in for the day they're back? When is that, exactly? Asking about a delegate surfaces whether the bottleneck is real or convenient, and naming the return date turns an open-ended wait into a concrete commitment. Confirm in writing that payment will be processed on, say, the 14th when the approver returns, and diarise to follow up that very day. If the same single-approver delay keeps recurring with a customer, it is worth raising as a process point — for important suppliers, many businesses arrange a backup authoriser precisely to avoid this. Genuine or not, a firm date is what stops 'on leave' from becoming a month. The Academy library covers keeping accounts moving through approval bottlenecks.

What to avoid

Do not accept an open-ended 'until they're back' with no date attached — that is how a short absence becomes a long delay. Do not assume bad faith and lean on a junior contact who genuinely cannot authorise; that just creates friction without moving the money. And do not fail to diarise the return date — if you forget to follow up the day the approver is back, the account simply keeps drifting.