Review and Sign-off, Full Workflow Overview

The six stages every job moves through, from setup to sign-off, and who owns each one.

Every job in Zato follows the same structured six-stage workflow from preparation through to final Director sign-off. Understanding the full sequence helps each team member know exactly what's expected of them at each stage.

The six stages

#

Stage

Owner

Condition to progress

1

Job Setup

L4,L3 and L2

Mapping complete; TB and GL uploaded.

2

Ready to Process

L4,L3 and L2

Run Zato is executed for the first time.

3

Processed

L4,L3 and L2

Mark Ready for Review, once every workpaper, query, and point is resolved.

4

In Review

L5

Ready for Sign Off, once the same conditions are met.

5

Review Completed

L6

Director signs off.

6

Signed Off

L6

Job complete; may be reopened if required.

What doesn't change the job's stage

●       Raising a query or review point during In Review, this must be resolved before the job can progress, but doesn't move it on its own.

●       An Accountant editing an already-approved workpaper during In Review, this drops the workpaper back to Unapproved for re-review, but the job stays at In Review.

●       A reviewer reading through workpapers during Processed, only Mark Ready for Review actually moves the job on.

The only backward move

Reopening a Signed Off job returns it to In Review, not to any earlier stage. From there, the manager re-runs their review and Ready for Sign Off has to be clicked again to progress the job forward once more.

Approving or rejecting a workpaper

Each workpaper's header shows its current Variance, a status badge (Pending review or Reconciled), and a Review control, alongside Edit, Sync with Partner, Lineage, and Details.

A workpaper can't move to Ready to approve while it has:

  • an open review point or brief point against it (only L5 Manager and L6 Director users can raise or resolve these; an Accountant can respond and attach evidence but can't close one), or

  • an open query against it.

Clearing the variance isn't a hard requirement to approve, a reviewer can approve a workpaper with an outstanding variance where that's a considered decision, not an oversight. Best practice is still to resolve it first using Sync with Zato or Sync with Partner (whichever side the correction was made on), so approval reflects a clean, understood position rather than an unexplained gap.

To approve or reject a workpaper from the workpaper screen:

  1. Open the workpaper from the left-hand panel.

  2. Resolve any open points or queries against it, these block approval regardless of variance.

  3. Where relevant, sync the workpaper's figures using Sync with Partner, then Sync with Zato or Sync with Partner (Xero).

  4. Click the Review control in the header.

  5. Select Approve or Reject from the dropdown.

    • Approve moves the workpaper to Approved and clears it from the outstanding count on the job's Review & Sign-off banner.

    • Reject sends it back for further work rather than removing it from the job, resolve whatever caused the rejection, then it becomes ready to approve again.

Important: editing an already-approved workpaper automatically reverts its status to Unapproved, so it goes through review again. This is expected behaviour, not an error, if a workpaper you approved shows Unapproved, check whether it was edited afterward.

How to access: Job Details, then Job Results, then Review & Sign-off.