HelixGate's business case approval module provides a structured, auditable investment governance workflow — from initial submission through financial appraisal, stakeholder sign-off, and executive decision. Every approval recorded. Every rationale captured. Every decision irreversible.
Most enterprise investment governance still happens in email threads, Word documents on shared drives, and informal conversations. When auditors ask for evidence — or when a rejected investment is re-litigated six months later — organisations have nothing to show. HelixGate changes that.
HelixGate implements the HM Treasury Green Book Five Case Model — the internationally recognised standard for investment appraisal. Each case progresses through maturity stages with increasing rigour, from initial concept to full business case.
Establishes the compelling need for change. Maps to organisational strategy, identifies strategic drivers, assesses stakeholder impact, and scores strategic fit. Required from the concept stage.
Structured options analysis with pros and cons for each alternative. Quantified benefits, ROI calculation, discount rate, sensitivity analysis, and preferred option rationale. Full cost-benefit appraisal.
Detailed CapEx and OpEx breakdown, funding source, budget code, contingency allocation, payback period, and cash flow projections. Ensures the investment fits within the spending envelope.
Procurement approach, market assessment, and commercial risk analysis. Documents supplier capability, contract structure, and risk allocation between parties.
Delivery methodology, governance structure, key milestones, change management approach, and risk register. Proves the organisation can execute successfully.
Progressive disclosure across five structured cases — Strategic, Economic, Financial, Commercial, and Management. Cases mature through concept, outline, and full stages with increasing mandatory fields at each gate.
Track promised benefits from business case to post-go-live. Each benefit has KPI targets, baseline measurements, realisation dates, and named owners. Post-implementation reviews validate whether benefits materialised.
Weighted multi-criteria scoring across strategic alignment, financial value, risk, feasibility, and urgency. Scores are averaged across multiple assessors and computed into a single weighted investment score for portfolio comparison.
Quantified risk assessment with probability and impact scoring (1-5). Computed risk scores, nine risk categories, mitigation strategies, residual risk tracking, and named risk owners. Aggregate risk score shown on every case.
Every action — submission, review, approval, rejection — is logged immutably with actor identity, IP address, UTC timestamp, and associated comments. No modification or deletion is possible, even by administrators.
Define custom approval stages with cost-based routing rules, parallel review groups, SLA tracking, auto-approval thresholds, and delegation support. Approvers resolved automatically from permission groups. Four starter templates included.
Link business cases to organisational strategic objectives. Score alignment strength per objective. Portfolio view identifies which objectives are funded and which have gaps — ensuring investments serve strategy, not politics.
Compare all business cases by weighted score, total cost, risk profile, and strategic alignment. Identify the highest-value investments, surface unfunded strategic objectives, and support data-driven prioritisation.
Internal auditors and external regulators want to see not just that a decision was made, but how — who reviewed it, who approved it, what they knew at the time, and whether the process was followed correctly.
HelixGate's immutable audit trail is enforced at the database layer — not just the application layer. Every approval is associated with an authenticated user identity, timestamp, and IP address. The record cannot be deleted or modified by any user, including platform administrators.
Approved business cases link directly to supplier records, ensuring new relationships have a documented approval basis.
From approved business case to executed contract — track which contracts were authorised by which cases and the investment value at each stage.
Major technology investments often require architecture decisions. HelixGate's ADR module provides a governed lifecycle that integrates with investment decisions.
Each return-and-resubmit cycle is tracked as a numbered revision round — authors must acknowledge comments before resubmitting. Sponsors can delegate review authority with full audit capture of the delegation chain. Separation of duties is platform-enforced: authors cannot approve their own submissions, and reviewers at each stage are distinct from each other and from the decision authority.
Templates support NPV, payback period, and cost-benefit analysis fields. They can be configured to align with HM Treasury Green Book five-case model requirements (strategic, economic, commercial, financial, management). The finance team's independent assessment and any adjustments to assumptions become part of the permanent case record.
When a case is conditionally approved, each condition is individually created, assigned, and tracked through to verified sign-off — implementation cannot proceed until all conditions are met. Final decisions generate a decision certificate with SHA-256 hash integrity, containing the full approval chain, outcome, rationale, and stakeholder sign-offs. Certificates are immutable once generated.
For SOC 2 Type II audits, HelixGate produces a complete evidence package — case record, approval chain, audit log, and decision certificate — in a single export. For ISO 27001 Annex A.5.36, the structured workflow demonstrates that investment policy is operationally enforced, not merely documented. Database-layer immutability satisfies evidence preservation requirements across both frameworks.
We'll walk you through the full approval lifecycle with a live demonstration — including conditional approvals, stakeholder assignment, and audit log generation for your specific governance requirements.