Freelance devs: how do you handle the gap between 'client said LGTM' and a real, dispute-proof approval record?

For freelance developers: how do you handle the gap between 'client says it looks good' and a real, enforceable approval record?

The pattern that keeps coming up: client reviews work, gives a thumbs up in Slack or a quick email reply. Later, they dispute what was delivered — claim they never approved a specific feature, or that the scope changed without their input, or that the design wasn't what was agreed. You dig through the thread and you have 'LGTM' — but you don't have a timestamped record tied to the specific version of the work.

This gap gets especially painful when the original stakeholder leaves mid-project. New contact comes in, no context, disputes the entire delivery. 'The previous person approved it' doesn't hold when you can't show exactly what they approved and when.

I'm building a formal approval layer: send the client a versioned approval request, they review the live deliverable and click approve, and that approval is timestamped and permanently linked to that build state. Not a PDF sign-off, not a Slack emoji — a real record.

For developers here: what's your current approval process, and have you ever needed to prove what was approved and couldn't?

https://www.myflowdeck.net/signoff?utm_source=forum&utm_medium=dev-community