Standard operating procedure · GB4A · AI GBS & Global Business Services

Period Close

Transactional procedure owned by R2R Control Tower in AI GBS & Global Business Services. 10 numbered steps, 2 of them a person deciding and 8 of them agent work … more

AI GBS & Global Business Services manual Service view

Procedure code

GB4A

Transactional

Rule versions in force

v3.4 · v1.7 · v1.6 · v5.3

4 governing rules stacked over it

In force since

2024-10-27

Earliest effective date across those rules

Last reviewed

2026-07-15

Latest review date across those rules

Rules approved by

Tower Lead, Record-to-Report

Rule health

3/4

0 under review · 1 superseded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 period close to one repeatable standard inside R2R Control Tower, part of AI GBS & Global Business Services. more

Entry condition

Runs transactional. Starts when a scheduled window opens.

Exit condition

The unit clears publish. more

In scope

Every unit of period close raised inside R2R Control Tower, from the trigger below through to the final step.
8 of the 10 steps, which run without a person present.
2 decisions that stop 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 6 steps carried on the shared AI GBS spine. They are done for this line but not by this function.

Who owns it

Runs the line

Record-to-Report Tower Orchestrator

Accountable person

Tower Lead, Record-to-Report

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

That team’s remit

Owns reconciliation work end to end inside AI GBS & Global Business Services. more

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

Autonomy

79% now · ceiling 89%

Reconciliation and accrual mechanics run agentic. more

The procedure, step by step

10 numbered steps · 2 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	Open close GBSgbs	Journal Entry Agent	Journal Entry 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	58 minstandard 2.1 hrs	35
02	Sub-ledger cutoff GBSgbs	Journal Entry Agent	Journal Entry 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	1.6 hrsstandard 1.9 hrs	18
03	Accruals GBSgbs	Journal Entry Agent	Journal Entry 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	1.5 hrsstandard 3.3 hrs	3
04	Reconcile GBSgbs	Journal Entry Agent	Journal Entry 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	1.6 hrsstandard 3.1 hrs	39
05	Intercompany match GBSgbs	Journal Entry Agent	Journal Entry 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	1.1 hrsstandard 2.0 hrs	28
06	Flux analysis Agentworkflow	Flux Analysis Agent	Flux Analysis 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	2.6 hrsstandard 3.6 hrs	8
07	Exception review HumanpolicyDecision	Tower Lead, Record-to-Report Releases: Tower Lead, Record-to-Report	Work stops. Tower Lead, Record-to-Report 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 reconciliation decision envelope, when confidence falls below the floor, or when a policy clause is engaged.	Group ERP — Financials	4.7 hrsstandard 6.3 hrs	5
08	Sign off HumanpolicyDecision	Tower Lead, Record-to-Report Releases: Tower Lead, Record-to-Report	Work stops. Tower Lead, Record-to-Report 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 reconciliation decision envelope, when confidence falls below the floor, or when a policy clause is engaged.	Group ERP — Financials	40 minstandard 58 min	1
09	Consolidate GBSgbs	Journal Entry Agent	Journal Entry 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	2.1 hrsstandard 3.1 hrs	12
10	Publish Agentworkflow	Close Integrity Agent	Close Integrity 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	2.5 hrsstandard 4.9 hrs	32

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

Person2 stations and 28% of the dwellAgent2 stations and 27% of the dwellShared spine6 stations and 46% of the dwell4 crossings between lanes

Human

decides

Agent

does the work

GBS

shared spine

System

attributed by rule

Group ERP — Financials

Enterprise Data Warehouse

Group ERP — Financials

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

0/10

the happy path, worked time0 min of 19 hrs

the same run against its allowance0 min of 31 hrs

Human

decides · 2

Agent

does the work · 2

GBS

shared spine · 6

run log

Nothing has happened yet. more

where the worked time goes19 hrs a unit

Person5.4 hrs · 28%Agent5.2 hrs · 27%Shared spine8.8 hrs · 46%4 crossings between lanes

what makes this path viable

The lanes are the recorded lanes. 2 of the 10 stations stop for a person and every one of them still does on this run.
Every one of the 2 decisions is still taken by the people who hold them. The happy path is that each one is released first time, not that it is skipped.
The owning team is held to a 89% autonomy ceiling and this run sits at 72% unattended, inside it.
2 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

Nothing moves. 72% of the worked time already runs unattended and the owning team is held to a 89% ceiling, so the next decision cannot be handed over until somebody raises that ceiling.

stays with a person

07 Exception review — Handing this over would put 115% of the worked time in the unattended lane, past the 89% ceiling this team is held to.
08 Sign off — 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

10 stations, nothing waiting, nothing sent back

0 min of 19 hrs

now Open close · Journal Entry Agent · 58 min

As the ledger has it

the same stations, plus 5 categories the estate already counts

0 min of 2.2 days

now Open close · Journal Entry Agent · 58 min

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

5 named parties

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

Party	RACI	Steps	Duty	Escalates to
Record-to-Report Tower Orchestrator orchestrator	Runs the line	0	Sequences this line, holds its timetable and decides what has to surface to a person. more	Raises to Tower Lead, Record-to-Report when a unit falls outside the envelope or confidence drops below the floor.
Journal Entry Agent agent A4% autonomy · ceiling A4% 91% clean · 8% overridden	Responsible	6	Runs the repeatable portion of r2r control tower inside the shared transaction spine at spine cost and spine controls.	Escalates to Tower Lead, Record-to-Report when the unit falls outside the decision envelope or confidence drops below the floor.
Flux Analysis Agent agent A4% autonomy · ceiling A4% 94% clean · 1% overridden	Responsible	1	Executes the r2r control tower step it owns, posts its evidence, and hands the unit to the next stage.	Escalates to Tower Lead, Record-to-Report when the unit falls outside the decision envelope or confidence drops below the floor.
Tower Lead, Record-to-Report person	Accountable and responsible	2	Holds 2 decisions on this line. more	Accountable to Tower Lead, Record-to-Report for the decisions held here.
Close Integrity Agent agent A2% autonomy · ceiling A4% 96% clean · 6% overridden	Responsible	1	Holds the rules that bind every other agent in r2r control tower. more	Escalates on any decision that would breach a live policy version, with the clause cited.

Decision points and escalation

2 places this procedure stops

07 · Exception review

4.7 hrs

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

Tower Lead, Record-to-Report

08 · Sign off

40 min

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

Tower Lead, Record-to-Report

Handoffs out of this procedure

Nothing leaves this procedure for another function. It completes inside R2R Control Tower.

The rules this procedure runs inside

4 governing rules

R2R Control Tower Decision Envelope

active

GB4-POL-200 · envelope · vv3.4

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

Approved by Tower Lead, Record-to-Report · in force 2026-01-22 · reviewed 2026-05-08

Binds Journal Entry Agent, Reconciliation Agent, Intercompany Agent, Accrual Agent, Close Task Agent, Flux Analysis Agent

Global

R2R Control Tower Evidence Standard

superseded

GB4-POL-201 · evidence · vv1.7

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

Approved by Tower Lead, Record-to-Report · in force 2025-03-14 · reviewed 2026-05-25

Binds Journal Entry Agent, Reconciliation Agent, Intercompany Agent, Accrual Agent, Close Task Agent, Flux Analysis Agent

APAC

R2R Control Tower Escalation Rule

active

GB4-POL-202 · escalation · vv1.6

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 Tower Lead, Record-to-Report · in force 2025-10-04 · reviewed 2026-06-07

Binds Journal Entry Agent, Reconciliation Agent, Intercompany Agent, Accrual Agent, Close Task Agent, Flux Analysis Agent

Global

R2R Control Tower Autonomy Ceiling

active

GB4-POL-203 · ceiling · vv5.3

The ceiling for this lane is 89 on the platform scale. more

Approved by Tower Lead, Record-to-Report · in force 2024-10-27 · reviewed 2026-07-15

Binds Journal Entry Agent, Reconciliation Agent, Intercompany Agent, Accrual Agent, Close Task Agent, Flux Analysis Agent

LATAM · US

Systems this procedure touches

2 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	9	modeled
Enterprise Data Warehouse	Snowflake	analytics	critical	1	modeled

0 of the 2 systems on this procedure is connected to the platform, and none of the twenty-six in the estate register is. 1 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

19.4 hrs

Summed from the time each step sits, standard 31.3 hrs — running at 62% of the standard.

Touchless

89%

Agent share

80%

A week

7,935

In flight

181

Effort a week

323 human minutes · 841 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
Autonomy level increase approval	Any move of an agent or workflow to a higher autonomy band	Business owner and risk	5 business days	No
New data class processing approval	Any service processing a data class not already approved	Risk and privacy officer	5 business days	No
Outsourcing or service removal approval	Any material operating-model, sourcing or service-portfolio change	GBS executive committee	10 business days	No
Agent recertification oversight	Quarterly evaluation of every agent against its published certification criteria	Agent governance board	Quarterly	No

Next to it on the same team

R2R Control Tower

Balance Sheet Reconciliation

GB4B

Intercompany Settlement

GB4C

Disclosure Drafting

GB4D

All of AI GBS & Global Business Services

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