A municipal utility wants any risk acceptance above a published residual threshold to require senior approval before the register shows Accepted. What should the implementer configure?

Municipal utilities that publish residual thresholds for risk acceptance should configure an approval workflow on acceptance that triggers when residual exceeds that threshold before the register shows Accepted. High residual acceptance is a governance event: senior stamp, system gate, and trail belong in IRM. Without a gate, Accepted status can understate unresolved exposure to the board.

A one-time spreadsheet sign-off stored outside the platform provides no system gate and leaves the register able to lie about acceptance. Automatic acceptance for every score because board appetite supposedly covers all residuals abolishes case-by-case accountability. Deleting high-score risks so acceptance is never recorded destroys evidence and invents false cleanliness.

Exam caveat: acceptance above threshold requires workflow approval in IRM—not side spreadsheets, not silent auto-accept, not deletion.

Operational check: define the residual threshold; attempt Accept above it; confirm approval is required before status becomes Accepted; ensure rejected or pending acceptances cannot appear as fully Accepted in executive views.

Operational maturity also means Accepted above threshold appears in dashboards only after approval completes, with the approver identity retained for examiners. Train utility risk owners that drafting an acceptance is not the same as authorized acceptance, and reject any offline PDF waiver as a substitute for the IRM gate. Re-test the workflow after role changes so senior approvers remain correctly mapped.