product · 02 · the departments
Departments.
Four domains of authority. A department holds the mandates its roles work under, is equipped with systems, and is where every receipt is filed.
A department is a domain of authority.
Four to begin with. Operations, for the work with customers, properties and projects. Finance, for what is owed and paid. People, for who is who and what they may do. Records, for what must be kept.
A department is not a team and not a piece of software. It is where authority lives: the mandates a role works under are granted to a department, and the receipt for every run is filed in one.
- operations
- customers · properties · projects · correspondence
- finance
- invoices · payments · entitlements
- people
- identity · access · onboarding
- records
- documents · packs · evidence
Each is equipped with systems.
A department works through the systems it is equipped with. Yours, connected as they are: a CRM, an accounts package, a directory, a document store. Or Elementary's own, made by the same house: Route Royal for operations, Vellon for finance, Wocha for people, Black Ink and Chancery for records.
The receipt states which system acted and at what grade. A connected system acts through its own tools with Q enforcing the approval. A first-class system enforces the action version itself and carries the charge on the same invoice. No system is first class yet.
- connected
- acts through its own tools · approval enforced by Q · at least once
- first class
- enforces the action version · signs the receipt · same invoice
- today
- Google Workspace and ClickUp act · Route Royal closest to first class
03 · filing
A receipt leaves the role and is filed in the department.
torn off
The run returns a receipt.
Six rows: department, role, evidence, approval, spend, state. Torn from the slot at the station where the work was done.
What exists today, and what is next.
Today a department is how a receipt is filed and how the registry's families are grouped. Approvals are made per action, by a person, inside the department's tenant.
Next, a department holds standing mandates, so a role can work unattended inside limits the department set. That follows the ledger across systems and is not claimed until it is in the registry.
- today
- receipts filed by department · per-action approval
- in design
- mandates granted to a department
- after that
- one ledger across every system a department uses
The departments, in figures.
- departments
- 4
- operations · finance · people · records
- first-class systems
- 0 of 4
- Route Royal closest · Wocha identity live · Vellon metering built, billing off
- connected systems that act
- 2
- Google Workspace · ClickUp
- connected systems, evidence only
- 5
- SharePoint · Notion · Confluence · Slack · Dropbox
- approval
- per action, by a person
- standing mandates not yet built
as recorded on 1 november 2026 · the capability registry is the authority