By replacing email-based approvals with structured workflows for purchase orders, payments, and credit notes, Aintree Plastics created a simpler and more consistent way to manage business spending.

About Aintree Plastics

Aintree Plastics is one of the UK’s leading independent manufacturers of high-performance polythene films and packaging solutions for industrial and food and beverage applications.

Founded in 1995 and based in Liverpool, the company manufactures films, bags, sheets, liners, and pallet covers. Its operations are supported by recognised quality, food packaging, and environmental certifications, making reliable processes and consistent financial controls an important part of the business.

The challenge: managing financial approvals through email

Before implementing Approveit, Aintree Plastics managed purchase order approvals, payment requests, and credit note requests through email and individual confirmations.

Each request required a timely decision from the appropriate person. However, when approvals were spread across separate email threads, the process depended heavily on manual follow-ups and individual communication.

This made it harder for management to maintain a consistent financial approval process, see which requests were awaiting a decision, and ensure that spending received the appropriate review before the company made a financial commitment.

Aintree Plastics needed a more structured approach to approval automation - without introducing a rigid system that could not be adapted to its existing manufacturing operations.

Why Aintree Plastics chose Approveit

Two factors were particularly important to the team:

• Simplicity for employees and approvers

• The ability to customise approval workflows around the company’s requirements

Approveit provided a flexible way to replace manual email approvals with structured financial workflows while keeping the process straightforward for everyone involved.

Rather than forcing every request through the same generic approval route, Aintree Plastics could create separate workflows for different types of financial decisions and define how each request should be reviewed.

The solution: automated workflows for key financial approvals

Aintree Plastics introduced Approveit across three important business processes: purchase order approvals, payment approvals, and credit note approvals.

Purchase order approval workflow

Purchase order requests now follow a defined approval workflow before the company commits to a purchase.

This gives management an earlier opportunity to review planned spending and helps ensure that purchasing decisions follow the appropriate internal approval process. Instead of relying on email confirmations, each purchase order request moves through a clear and consistent approval route.

Payment approval workflow

Payment requests are submitted through a standardised workflow and routed to the relevant approvers.

This makes it easier to see what is awaiting a decision and reduces reliance on separate email conversations, manual reminders, and individual confirmations. The business can manage payment approvals through a repeatable process rather than handling each request differently.

Credit note approval workflow

Credit note requests follow their own structured approval process, helping Aintree Plastics apply the same level of control and accountability to decisions that affect customer balances and company revenue.

Together, these automated approval workflows provide the business with a more consistent way to manage different types of financial activity.

The result: stronger cost control without unnecessary complexity

The most important improvement reported by Aintree Plastics has been better cost control.

By bringing purchase order, payment, and credit note approvals into structured workflows, the company has established a clearer process for reviewing spending-related decisions. Requests no longer depend on scattered email chains, and each type of approval can follow a workflow tailored to the company’s operating requirements.

For management, this creates a stronger foundation for financial control:

• Purchase orders are reviewed before financial commitments are made

• Payment and credit note requests follow defined approval routes

• Key financial decisions are handled more consistently

• Approval workflows reflect the company’s actual business processes

• The approval process can be adapted as the business evolves

With Approveit, Aintree Plastics has strengthened control over financial decisions while keeping approvals simple for employees and decision-makers.