Standard operating procedure · FI5B · Finance

Policy Query

Transactional procedure owned by Controllership & Policy in Finance. 6 numbered steps, 1 of them a person deciding and 5 of them agent work … more

Finance manual Service view

Procedure code

FI5B

Transactional

Rule versions in force

v5.8 · v3.1 · v2.3 · v4.3

4 governing rules stacked over it

In force since

2025-06-27

Earliest effective date across those rules

Last reviewed

2026-07-24

Latest review date across those rules

Rules approved by

Chief Accounting Officer

Rule health

4/4

0 under review · 0 superseded

There is no document register behind this header. The version, the dates and the approver names are read off the governing rules this procedure runs inside, which is the closest thing the estate holds to a document control record. Nobody wrote these procedures. There is no document library behind this page and no Word file anywhere in the estate. Every procedure below is generated from rows this platform already holds: the line and its ordered stations, the owning team and the person accountable for it, the policy items bound to that team, and the governance gates seeded against the function. The steps, the owners, the gates, the approvers, the dwell times and the volumes are read straight off those rows. The sentences that join them together are generated. Read a procedure as the estate describing itself, not as a document somebody signed.

Purpose and scope

What this procedure is for and where it stops

To run policy query to one repeatable standard inside Controllership & Policy, part of Finance. more

Entry condition

Runs transactional. Starts when a threshold is crossed.

Exit condition

The unit clears log precedent. more

In scope

Every unit of policy query raised inside Controllership & Policy, from the trigger below through to the final step.
5 of the 6 steps, which run without a person present.
1 decision that stops the line until a named person releases it.

Out of scope

Anything outside the envelope set by the owning team. It leaves the line at a gate and becomes the named approver's decision.
Work that belongs to another function. This line records no handoff, so nothing leaves it mid-flow.
The 1 step carried on the shared AI GBS spine. They are done for this line but not by this function.

Who owns it

Runs the line

Controllership Orchestrator

Accountable person

Chief Accounting Officer

The end of the escalation path. Above them sits Finance Chief of Staff for the function.

That team’s remit

Owns technical position work end to end inside Finance. more

That remit describes the whole team, not this one procedure, so its counts are larger than the ones on this page.

Autonomy

51% now · ceiling 62%

Deliberately capped low. Agents research and draft technical positions, but accounting judgments are attested to by named officers and concurred by external auditors.

The procedure, step by step

6 numbered steps · 1 of them stop for a person

A step is one station on the line. more

No.	Step	Who does it	What happens	System of record	Time on the step	In flight
01	Intake Agentworkflow	Accounting Policy Agent	Accounting Policy Agent performs this step unattended at the workflow layer, inside the envelope its owning team has set, and writes an evidence record naming the actor, the authority it acted under and the digests of what it read and wrote.	Bank Connectivity Gateway	1.0 hrsstandard 2.4 hrs	12
02	Retrieve policy GBSgbs	Accounting Policy Agent	Accounting Policy Agent performs this step unattended on the shared AI GBS transaction spine, outside the function, inside the envelope its owning team has set, and writes an evidence record naming the actor, the authority it acted under and the digests of what it read and wrote.	Group ERP — Financials	55 minstandard 1.3 hrs	14
03	Draft answer Agentworkflow	Standards Watch Agent	Standards Watch Agent performs this step unattended at the workflow layer, inside the envelope its owning team has set, and writes an evidence record naming the actor, the authority it acted under and the digests of what it read and wrote.	Enterprise Data Warehouse	19 minstandard 44 min	26
04	Controller review HumanpolicyDecision	Chief Accounting Officer Releases: Chief Accounting Officer	Work stops. Chief Accounting Officer reviews what the line has produced and either releases the unit or sends it back. Nothing downstream of this step runs until that decision is made.Holds until: Held for a named human when the unit exceeds the technical position decision envelope, when confidence falls below the floor, or when a policy clause is engaged.	Group ERP — Financials	2.6 hrsstandard 5.1 hrs	1
05	Deliver Agentworkflow	Disclosure Agent	Disclosure Agent performs this step unattended at the workflow layer, inside the envelope its owning team has set, and writes an evidence record naming the actor, the authority it acted under and the digests of what it read and wrote.	Group ERP — Financials	22 minstandard 35 min	40
06	Log precedent Agentworkflow	Policy Interpretation Agent	Policy Interpretation Agent performs this step unattended at the workflow layer, inside the envelope its owning team has set, and writes an evidence record naming the actor, the authority it acted under and the digests of what it read and wrote.	Core HR and Payroll	1.1 hrsstandard 1.4 hrs	10

The swimlane

The same steps, laid out by who is holding the work

Three lanes: a person deciding, an agent working, and the shared services spine. more

Person1 station and 41% of the dwellAgent4 stations and 44% of the dwellShared spine1 station and 14% of the dwell4 crossings between lanes

Human

decides

Agent

does the work

GBS

shared spine

System

attributed by rule

Bank Connectivity Gateway

Group ERP — Financials

Enterprise Data Warehouse

Group ERP — Financials

Core HR and Payroll

Click any station to see who does it, what it costs in time, the rule that gates it and the system attributed to it.

Run the procedure

One unit walked along that swimlane on the happy viable agentified path

Press run and a single unit enters at station 01. Each station takes exactly the dwell this platform records for it and is held by whoever the estate says holds it. more

speed

worked clock

00:00

allowance clock

00:00

stations cleared

0/6

the happy path, worked time0 min of 6.4 hrs

the same run against its allowance0 min of 12 hrs

Human

decides · 1

Agent

does the work · 4

GBS

shared spine · 1

run log

Nothing has happened yet. more

where the worked time goes6.4 hrs a unit

Person2.6 hrs · 41%Agent2.9 hrs · 44%Shared spine55 min · 14%4 crossings between lanes

what makes this path viable

The lanes are the recorded lanes. 1 of the 6 stations stop for a person and every one of them still does on this run.
Every one of the 1 decision is still taken by the person who holds it. The happy path is that each one is released first time, not that it is skipped.
The owning team is held to a 62% autonomy ceiling and this run sits at 59% unattended, inside it.
4 systems are attributed across the stations, and 0 of them are connected. Nothing in this run has been watched executing against a real system of record.

what would have to change

One decision, held by Chief Accounting Officer. more

stays with a person

04 Controller review — The last decision on the line. Something on every procedure ends with a person, so this one is never offered.

what this run is, and what it is not

This is a run, not a forecast. more

Happy means nothing goes wrong: no station raises an exception, no gate sends the unit back, no rework loop fires and nothing sits in a queue between stations. more

The second clock is the allowance. more

A decision may be handed to the agent lane only if two things hold … more

The run reads the station rows only. more

What this run does not model: arrival patterns, contention between procedures for the same person, shift patterns, weekends, learning curves, and the cost of anything. more

Run it again, going wrong

The same unit, the same stations, broken the way the estate already records breaking

This is the same unit on the same stations, breaking. more

No break below was chosen. more

One play head, two tracks, the same scale. The clean run stops when it runs out of stations; the other one keeps going.

As written

6 stations, nothing waiting, nothing sent back

0 min of 6.4 hrs

now Intake · Accounting Policy Agent · 1.0 hrs

As the ledger has it

the same stations, plus 5 categories the estate already counts

0 min of 20 hrs

now Intake · Accounting Policy Agent · 1.0 hrs

personagentshared spinework the break addsnobody working it

What breaks, and where it is counted

No break below was chosen. more

What the two runs say together

5 counted categories land on this procedure. more

What this run cannot claim

These breaks are shown together on one unit so the shape of a bad day fits on one screen. more

The separation register records a duty conflict against a sub-function and a named post, not against one procedure. more

Two clocks run. Worked time is the sum of the time the work is actually being done … more

Roles and responsibilities

6 named parties

The responsibility grid is assigned by a rule, not lifted from a chart. more

Party	RACI	Steps	Duty	Escalates to
Controllership Orchestrator orchestrator	Runs the line	0	Sequences this line, holds its timetable and decides what has to surface to a person. more	Raises to Chief Accounting Officer when a unit falls outside the envelope or confidence drops below the floor.
Accounting Policy Agent agent A2% autonomy · ceiling A2% 95% clean · 14% overridden	Responsible	2	Holds the rules that bind every other agent in controllership & policy. more	Escalates on any decision that would breach a live policy version, with the clause cited.
Standards Watch Agent agent A2% autonomy · ceiling A2% 87% clean · 11% overridden	Responsible	1	Watches controllership & policy continuously. more	Escalates to Chief Accounting Officer when the unit falls outside the decision envelope or confidence drops below the floor.
Chief Accounting Officer person	Accountable and responsible	1	Holds 1 decision on this line. more	Accountable to Chief Accounting Officer for the decisions held here.
Disclosure Agent agent A2% autonomy · ceiling A2% 98% clean · 2% overridden	Responsible	1	Executes the controllership & policy step it owns, posts its evidence, and hands the unit to the next stage.	Escalates to Chief Accounting Officer when the unit falls outside the decision envelope or confidence drops below the floor.
Policy Interpretation Agent agent A2% autonomy · ceiling A2% 88% clean · 7% overridden	Responsible	1	Holds the rules that bind every other agent in hr business partnering. more	Escalates on any decision that would breach a live policy version, with the clause cited.

Decision points and escalation

1 places this procedure stops

04 · Controller review

2.6 hrs

Held for a named human when the unit exceeds the technical position decision envelope, when confidence falls below the floor, or when a policy clause is engaged.

Chief Accounting Officer

Handoffs out of this procedure

Nothing leaves this procedure for another function. It completes inside Controllership & Policy.

The rules this procedure runs inside

4 governing rules

Controllership & Policy Decision Envelope

active

FI5-POL-200 · envelope · vv5.8

Agents in this lane may act without a human when the technical position sits inside the stated value, risk and confidence envelope. more

Approved by Chief Accounting Officer · in force 2026-04-08 · reviewed 2026-04-28

Binds Judgment Documentation Agent, Disclosure Agent

Global

Controllership & Policy Evidence Standard

active

FI5-POL-201 · evidence · vv3.1

Every autonomous decision writes inputs, the rule version applied, the model and prompt version, the output and a reversal path. more

Approved by Chief Accounting Officer · in force 2025-09-20 · reviewed 2026-07-24

Binds Judgment Documentation Agent, Disclosure Agent

EU · UK · US

Controllership & Policy Escalation Rule

active

FI5-POL-202 · escalation · vv2.3

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. more

Approved by Chief Accounting Officer · in force 2026-03-15 · reviewed 2026-04-27

Binds Judgment Documentation Agent, Disclosure Agent

US · Canada

Controllership & Policy Autonomy Ceiling

active

FI5-POL-203 · ceiling · vv4.3

The ceiling for this lane is 62 on the platform scale. more

Approved by Chief Accounting Officer · in force 2025-06-27 · reviewed 2026-07-11

Binds Judgment Documentation Agent, Disclosure Agent

EU · UK

Systems this procedure touches

4 named · 0 connected

System attribution is a rule, not a reading. more

System	Vendor	Domain	Criticality	Steps	Connection
Group ERP — Financials	SAP S/4HANA	ledger	critical	3	modeled
Bank Connectivity Gateway	SWIFT and host-to-host channels	banking	critical	1	not-connected
Enterprise Data Warehouse	Snowflake	analytics	critical	1	modeled
Core HR and Payroll	Workday HCM	hcm	critical	1	modeled

0 of the 4 systems on this procedure is connected to the platform, and none of the twenty-six in the estate register is. 3 of them are marked as taking a write back, which is a property of the system, not a live path from here.

How it performs

End to end

6.4 hrs

Summed from the time each step sits, standard 11.5 hrs — running at 56% of the standard.

Touchless

56%

Agent share

83%

A week

6,032

In flight

103

Effort a week

159 human minutes · 226 agent minutes

Volume multiplied by the time on each step. more

Assurance over this procedure

4 governance gates sit above it

The twenty-four controls and eighteen exception classes in this platform are held at estate level … more

Gate	What trips it	Who releases it	Clock	Waivable
Payment above $100,000 approval	Any single payment or batch exceeding $100,000	Controller and treasurer	4 business hours	No
Nonstandard journal entry approval	Any entry outside the approved recurring library, including estimates and reserves	Controller	1 business day	No
New or changed bank details approval	Any change to supplier or employee banking information	Treasury and supplier master owner	2 business days	No
External disclosure or board forecast approval	Any external report, statutory filing or board-committed forecast	CFO	3 business days	No

Next to it on the same team

Controllership & Policy

Technical Accounting Position

FI5A

Standards Change Response

FI5C

All of Finance

What this document is and is not

These procedures describe the modeled estate. more

Actions

What is waiting on a person

What one procedure document gives you, and what to check before you treat it as the standard.

151

named approvers appear across the library

Every decision point on every procedure carries a job title, not a queue. more

143

steps in the library hand their unit to another function

A handoff is where a procedure stops being one team’s problem. more

controls exist in the estate, and they belong to no procedure in particular

Controls and exception classes are held estate-wide. more

Operations

What this desk is allowed to start

A surface that only reports is not operable. more

Trigger and bound

A procedure document prints purpose, scope, entry and exit, the numbered steps with the actor on each, the roles and their RACI position, the swimlane, the decision points and escalation, the handoffs, the governing rules with version and approver, the systems by rule and the timings. more

Live observability

What the record shows right now

The whole library, by lane, so a single document can be read against the estate it came from. more

Current distribution

2,748 steps

Agent, inside the function1,38951%

Agent, on the shared spine85131%

Person deciding at a gate50818%

Is policy and strategy coming to fruition

Whether the written intent is holding here

Half. The document is complete and every actor on it is measured more

Not holding on the record

A procedure here carries a version, an approver, an in-force date and a last-review date. more