Producer approvals, by message
Business sign-off over WhatsApp — approvals, status questions, and when a human steps in.
5 min read
Business terms — chiefly above-the-line deals and rates above the market automation threshold — need the producer's sign-off. Rather than another login, BALA's concierge reaches the producer where they already are — WhatsApp first, plain SMS as the fallback — asks the question in plain words, and records the answer against the deal.
The conversation
To approve, the producer just replies “sí”. Naming a different amount approves at that figure — and any unsigned paper carrying the old terms is voided and reissued, so a stale document can never be signed. Saying the contract itself needs changes routes the deal to counsel. The moment an approval is recorded, the agreement is generated and sent for signature — no one has to come back and press send.
Producers can also simply ask where things stand — “¿cuántos contratos del reparto siguen pendientes?” — and get a direct answer computed from the production's live state, in their own language.
First contact
WhatsApp only allows a free-form business message within 24 hours of the producer's last reply. Outside that window the concierge opens with a short pre-approved note; the producer's reply opens the window, and the real question follows immediately.
One producer, several productions
A producer running several of the firm's productions still has one chat with BALA. Replies route by who they name — “sí a Mariana” lands on Mariana's deal, whichever production she's on. A bare “sí” is only recorded when exactly one approval is pending across all their productions; if it could mean two things, the concierge lists the options and asks which one they mean rather than guessing.
When a human steps in
A rejection, a request to change terms, a legal question, or anything the concierge can't confidently read pauses the conversation for a person. Messages are still recorded — nothing is lost — but the concierge stops replying. The production surfaces a producer waiting flag in Needs You and a banner on its page; Hand back to BALA resumes the conversation and answers the message the producer is still waiting on.
What it never does
Records, doesn't author
The concierge never impersonates the firm's people, never speaks as counsel, and never manufactures an approval. Every recorded decision carries the producer's verbatim words in a tamper-evident, hash-chained log. If a producer can't be reached by message, the web Approvals view is the fallback — the same decision, captured the same way.