No tradie booked until the owner has said yes

Owner approval as a stage, not a habit

Write the process down once: lodged, owner approval, tradie booked, done. Every request moves through those stages in order, and owner approval is a stage of its own rather than something somebody is supposed to remember.

Make who approved it and the approved limit required on the approval stage. A request cannot reach 'tradie booked' until both have values. Try, and it stays where it is, with the missing field named.

So the approval is always written down, on the request, with the amount the owner agreed to. Six months later, when somebody asks who signed off on the hot water system, it is there.

Ask the owner from the request

Email the owner from the request itself. Every email sent from a request carries a reply address naming it, so when the owner replies with their approval it lands back on that request rather than in one person's inbox, with anything they attached saved onto it.

Pick the owner from your contacts when the request is lodged. Put an email on the approval stage and it sends itself when the request arrives there, with the property and the problem filled in and the address read off the owner's contact record.

Tenants kept in the loop

Email, text or WhatsApp the tenant from the request when the tradie is booked, and their reply comes back onto it. You can make telling the tenant a gate, so a request cannot leave 'tradie booked' until they have actually been messaged.

Turn on the customer portal and a tenant can follow their own request step by step through a private link, with no password, and see only the details you choose to share.

Nothing left sitting

Give each stage a target number of days. A request waiting on an owner or a tradie too long is flagged, listed in the weekly summary, and emailed to whoever manages it the morning after it goes over.

Each owner's contact record lists every request that names them, so the history of what they have approved is one click away.