Sub-function
Deal Desk & Approvals
Owns deal work end to end inside Sales. Runs 3 lines across 18 stations, drains the repeatable share into the O2C tower, and holds 4 human gates.
Estate rating
BBB
73 / 100
In-policy deals clear automatically with evidence posted. Anything outside the discount envelope routes to a named approver, because this is where revenue leakage lives.
Agents
9
Lines
3
Units / wk
3,178
Timetable vs actual
4.2h → 4.9h
Cost / unit
$4.96
was $13
Run-rate saving
$1.4M
annualized at this volume
The 9 agents running this sub-function
Grouped by what they are for, not by where they sit. The agent org is process-shaped.
Deal Desk Orchestrator
Owns the deal desk & approvals lane end to end. Sequences the other agents, holds the timetable, and decides what surfaces to a human.
ceiling A3 · escalates to Escalates to Director, Deal Desk when the unit falls outside the decision envelope or confidence drops below the floor.
Discount Policy Agent
Holds the rules that bind every other agent in deal desk & approvals. Versions them, tests them against live decisions, and blocks work that breaches them.
ceiling A3 · escalates to Escalates on any decision that would breach a live policy version, with the clause cited.
Margin Impact Agent
Executes the deal desk & approvals step it owns, posts its evidence, and hands the unit to the next stage.
ceiling A3 · escalates to Escalates to Director, Deal Desk when the unit falls outside the decision envelope or confidence drops below the floor.
Non-standard Terms Agent
Executes the deal desk & approvals step it owns, posts its evidence, and hands the unit to the next stage.
ceiling A3 · escalates to Escalates to Director, Deal Desk when the unit falls outside the decision envelope or confidence drops below the floor.
Precedent Lookup Agent
Executes the deal desk & approvals step it owns, posts its evidence, and hands the unit to the next stage.
ceiling A3 · escalates to Escalates to Director, Deal Desk when the unit falls outside the decision envelope or confidence drops below the floor.
Revenue Impact Agent
Executes the deal desk & approvals step it owns, posts its evidence, and hands the unit to the next stage.
ceiling A3 · escalates to Escalates to Director, Deal Desk when the unit falls outside the decision envelope or confidence drops below the floor.
Approval Routing Agent
Runs the repeatable portion of deal desk & approvals inside the shared transaction spine at spine cost and spine controls.
ceiling A3 · escalates to Escalates to Director, Deal Desk when the unit falls outside the decision envelope or confidence drops below the floor.
Deal Doctrine Agent
Authors positions on deal desk & approvals. Frames the question, models the options, and writes a recommendation a human can ratify or reject.
ceiling A3 · escalates to Escalates when two options sit inside the confidence band and the evidence cannot separate them.
Deal Desk & Approvals Challenger Agent
Adversarial reviewer for deal desk & approvals. Argues the opposite case on every position and flags where the evidence does not carry the claim.
ceiling A3 · escalates to Escalates when a ratified position is still running against a break condition it flagged.
Estate rating breakdown
Seven control dimensions. Judgment readiness runs against autonomy on purpose.
People
What the humans stopped doing, and what they do now.
Redeployed into scenario work and strategy authoring review.
Lines running in this sub-function
Each line is a workflow. Click a line to walk it station by station.
Strategy positions this sub-function holds
An agent that only executes is a robot. These are the calls it made, the argument against each one, and what would prove it wrong.
Discount Doctrine Position
Draftv2Is the current cost per deal defensible against external comparators once inference spend is counted in full?
Hold the ceiling at A3 for deal desk & approvals. In-policy deals clear automatically with evidence posted. Anything outside the discount envelope routes to a named approver, because this is where revenue leakage lives. Raise it only after two consecutive quarters where the override rate stays under five percent and every override has a written cause.
confidence
83%
The challenge — Deal Desk & Approvals Challenger Agent
Deal Desk & Approvals Challenger Agent argues the recommendation leans on 2 quarters of data from a period with no volume shock. The confidence band overlaps the alternative, and the position does not say what it would take to be wrong. Recorded as a dissent, not a block.
Break conditions
- ·Override rate rises above 9 percent for two consecutive months
- ·Cost per deal stops falling while volume keeps rising
- ·A control failure in this lane reaches a customer or a regulator
Evidence gaps
- ·No independent test of the control evidence behind the touchless rate
| Alternative considered | Cost | Risk | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hold the current position | $95k run rate | Known and priced. Cedes ground if comparators move faster. | live |
| Raise the ceiling one level now | $1289k to build controls | Override rate is 9 percent; raising the ceiling before that settles imports the error into production. | rejected on evidence |
| Move the exception tail to the spine | $1177k transition | Loses local context. Rework risk on the cases that are hardest to recover. | under review |
Deal Desk & Approvals Operating Position
Ratifiedv4Which parts of deal desk & approvals should deliberately stay human, and how do we defend that against a cost argument?
Keep the repeatable deal volume in the spine and pull the exception tail back into the function. The spine is cheaper per unit; the tail is where the context that prevents rework actually sits.
confidence
80%
The challenge — Deal Desk & Approvals Challenger Agent
Deal Desk & Approvals Challenger Agent argues the recommendation leans on 3 quarters of data from a period with no volume shock. The confidence band overlaps the alternative, and the position does not say what it would take to be wrong. Recorded as a dissent, not a block.
Break conditions
- ·Override rate rises above 13 percent for two consecutive months
- ·Cost per deal stops falling while volume keeps rising
- ·A comparator publishes a materially lower unit cost on a like-for-like basis
Evidence gaps
- ·No independent test of the control evidence behind the touchless rate
| Alternative considered | Cost | Risk | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hold the current position | $321k run rate | Known and priced. Cedes ground if comparators move faster. | not selected |
| Raise the ceiling one level now | $1109k to build controls | Override rate is 7 percent; raising the ceiling before that settles imports the error into production. | rejected on evidence |
| Move the exception tail to the spine | $996k transition | Loses local context. Rework risk on the cases that are hardest to recover. | selected |
Ratified 8 months ago. Measured since: cost per deal fell 32 percent against a forecast of 29 percent.
Policy register
The rules the agents above are bound by. Version, owner, approver, and the agents each rule constrains.
| Ref | Rule | Scope | Owner agent | Approved by | Version | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SL6-POL-200 | Deal Desk & Approvals Decision Envelope Agents in this lane may act without a human when the deal sits inside the stated value, risk and confidence envelope. Outside it, the unit holds at a gate with a named approver and a running clock. binds 5 agents · EU · UK · US | envelope | Discount Policy Agent | Director, Deal Desk | v3.3 | Active |
| SL6-POL-201 | Deal Desk & Approvals Evidence Standard Every autonomous decision writes inputs, the rule version applied, the model and prompt version, the output and a reversal path. An action with no evidence record is treated as a control failure, not a fast decision. binds 5 agents · Global | evidence | Discount Policy Agent | Director, Deal Desk | v2.0 | Active |
| SL6-POL-202 | Deal Desk & Approvals Escalation Rule Escalation is mandatory when confidence falls below the floor, when two options sit inside the confidence band, or when a break condition on a ratified position fires. Director, Deal Desk owns the response clock. binds 5 agents · EU · UK | escalation | Discount Policy Agent | Director, Deal Desk | v2.8 | Active |