Founder POV: At Hops®, we sat in a room and thought about every scenario an operation might face in the context of an authorisation.

This article is adapted from a LinkedIn post by Robbie Francis, Founder of Hops.

At Hops®, we sat in a room and thought about every scenario an operation might face in the context of an authorisation.

• What if the approver is on holiday?
• What if there's nobody senior enough on shift?
• What if the cut-off is in an hour?

For years, the process has been clunky. If a decision needed making, it waited for you. If an order needed approving, it sat in a queue until Monday morning.

The operation paused; or worse….. someone made the call without you.

Here's how authorisations actually work in Hops…. and why we built it the way we did.

1️⃣ The limits

Every user has an authorisation level. Fully restricted to fully unrestricted, with as many stages in between as your business needs.

A sous chef might start at £300. A senior chef at £1,000. A GM at £10,000. Those limits grow alongside trust and experience.

2️⃣ The escalation

In hospitality, orders don't wait: supplier cut-off times are real, an order placed at midday might need approving and sending by 3pm.

So in Hops, escalation is dynamic.

If your boss hasn't approved within the defined timeframe, the system automatically moves it to the next available person in your department.

Nobody in your department? → It escalates to site level.

Nobody at site? → It goes to the Company Admin.

Bob's dealing with an HR issue and forgot to set his out of office? → The system figures it out.

3️⃣ The approvals

A £4,000 order landing at 8pm on a Friday doesn't have to sit there until Monday.

Push notification hits your phone, or an email arrives with a deep link. Tap it, and you're straight to the approval page.

• Review supplier, delivery date, value, line items
• Approve or reject…done in 60 seconds
• Zero friction

Use the app for speed. Use desktop for complexity (large spend, lots of line items, or when you want to cross-reference order history).

But either way: a quick tap is still a decision. Treat it like one.

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About Robbie Francis
Robbie Francis is the Founder of Hops. He has spent years building and implementing hospitality technology with operators, focused on simplifying back-of-house operations across inventory and finance.

Follow Robbie on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/robbiefrancis

View the original LinkedIn post: At Hops®, we sat in a room and thought about every scenario an operation might face in the context of an authorisation.