Finance & procurement
Move the work between records and approvals.
Trace how requests, purchase records, invoices, payments, and close evidence move between systems and accountable reviewers. The map makes handoffs visible, prepares the case for each decision, and keeps exceptions from disappearing in a queue.
This is an inferred reference inventory for functional mid-market finance and procurement teams. It describes recurring work patterns, not a claim about any particular organization.
- Starts with
- A request, record change, exception, or reporting question enters the finance queue.
- Moves through
- The case is checked against policy, matched to source records, routed to the right approver, and documented for the next handoff.
- Ends with
- A controlled decision, posted transaction, reconciled balance, or clearly owned escalation is ready for review.
Every unit is a chain of handoffs.
These are the recurring algorithms that make the unit work. Each one turns an input into a decision, a next step, or a more complete case for the next owner.
Finance operating model
Set the operating rules, ownership boundaries, and review cadence that keep finance work consistent across teams and systems.
- Define finance service catalog
- Maintain finance process map
- Assign process owners
- Define approval authority matrix
- Set month-end calendar
- Set payment calendar
- Set procurement intake rules
- Publish close responsibilities
- Run finance operating review
- Review policy exception trends
- Update delegated authority records
- Escalate ownership gap
Spend and vendor intake
Collect the context needed to assess new spend and vendor relationships before commitments enter the purchasing system.
- Intake spend request
- Classify spend category
- Assess vendor need
- Run vendor onboarding
- Validate vendor identity
- Collect vendor tax form
- Collect vendor banking details
- Screen vendor sanctions status
- Review vendor terms
- Assign vendor owner
- Approve vendor activation
- Escalate incomplete vendor intake
Purchase requests and approvals
Turn a proposed purchase into a documented request with the budget, business need, and approval path required to commit spend.
- Create purchase request
- Validate request coding
- Check available budget
- Confirm purchasing channel
- Route request for approval
- Run PO approval
- Review nonstandard terms
- Approve capital purchase
- Approve emergency purchase
- Return request for clarification
- Reject unsupported request
- Escalate overdue approval
- Amend approved purchase request
Procure-to-pay
Coordinate requisitions, purchase orders, receipts, and payment-ready records so authorized spend can move through one traceable path.
- Convert request to purchase order
- Issue purchase order
- Confirm supplier acceptance
- Track purchase order status
- Record goods receipt
- Record service receipt
- Amend purchase order
- Close fulfilled purchase order
- Close cancelled purchase order
- Monitor unreceived purchase order
- Review spend against purchase order
- Reconcile receipt and order status
- Escalate aged open purchase order
Invoice intake and matching
Capture invoices, preserve source evidence, and match supplier charges to purchase and receipt records before posting or payment.
- Receive supplier invoice
- Register invoice metadata
- Validate invoice legal entity
- Validate invoice tax fields
- Match invoice to purchase order
- Run three-way match
- Match invoice to service receipt
- Apply contract pricing
- Validate duplicate invoice risk
- Route matched invoice for approval
- Post approved invoice
- Hold invoice pending receipt
- Escalate invoice without source record
Invoice exceptions
Resolve mismatches and missing evidence with the requester, supplier, and approver while preserving the reason for each disposition.
- Run exception resolution
- Resolve invoice exception
- Resolve price variance
- Resolve quantity variance
- Resolve tax discrepancy
- Resolve duplicate invoice alert
- Resolve missing purchase order
- Resolve missing receipt
- Resolve invalid cost center
- Resolve currency mismatch
- Request supplier credit memo
- Approve documented exception
- Reject unsupported invoice
- Age and prioritize invoice queue
- Escalate unresolved invoice case
Payments and cash controls
Prepare payment runs, verify cash and banking controls, and keep release decisions with accountable people.
- Prepare payment proposal
- Review payment due list
- Validate payment beneficiary
- Check payment hold status
- Check cash availability
- Review payment segregation
- Approve payment batch
- Run payment release
- Confirm payment file transmission
- Record payment settlement
- Investigate returned payment
- Reissue failed payment
- Review bank change request
- Escalate payment control breach
Close and reconciliation
Bring subledgers, bank activity, accruals, and account balances together so close progress is visible and supported by evidence.
- Open close checklist
- Confirm close task ownership
- Perform account reconciliation
- Reconcile bank activity
- Reconcile accounts payable subledger
- Reconcile accounts receivable subledger
- Post recurring journal entry
- Prepare accrual entry
- Review prepaid schedule
- Review fixed asset activity
- Review intercompany balance
- Manage close blockers
- Review late close task
- Approve close adjustment
- Sign off close package
Budgeting and variance
Maintain budget assumptions and investigate differences between plan, committed spend, actual results, and the latest forecast.
- Collect budget submission
- Validate budget assumptions
- Review department budget
- Review committed spend
- Run variance review
- Review budget variance
- Investigate forecast variance
- Document variance explanation
- Approve budget transfer
- Approve supplemental funding
- Refresh rolling forecast
- Reconcile plan and forecast versions
- Escalate material unexplained variance
Financial reporting and planning
Produce decision-ready reporting from controlled records, with clear definitions, review checkpoints, and a documented planning trail.
- Prepare management reporting pack
- Prepare monthly financial statements
- Prepare cash flow forecast
- Prepare operating expense report
- Prepare headcount cost report
- Prepare spend dashboard
- Validate reporting period
- Reconcile report to ledger
- Review reporting adjustments
- Publish approved finance report
- Collect planning scenario
- Review planning assumptions
- Escalate reporting discrepancy
Tax, audit, and evidence
Keep tax filings, audit requests, and control evidence complete, traceable, and ready for accountable review without overstating what a record proves.
- Prepare indirect tax return
- Review sales tax treatment
- Review use tax exposure
- Prepare tax payment support
- Respond to tax authority request
- Open audit request list
- Assign audit request owner
- Assemble audit evidence
- Validate evidence period
- Review control evidence package
- Track evidence submission
- Resolve auditor follow-up
- Escalate missing audit evidence
Finance data governance and exceptions
Maintain trustworthy finance master data, definitions, access boundaries, and exception records across the systems that carry financial decisions.
- Maintain chart of accounts
- Maintain cost center hierarchy
- Maintain vendor master record
- Maintain payment terms
- Maintain tax code mapping
- Maintain approval routing rules
- Reconcile finance system records
- Monitor integration sync
- Investigate duplicate master record
- Investigate missing transaction data
- Review finance access change
- Review data retention exception
- Document metric definition
- Resolve reporting data exception
- Escalate recurring data-quality issue
Keep the decision with the accountable reviewer.
- Evidence before approval
- Each request, invoice, payment, and adjustment carries the source records, policy checks, and unresolved questions a reviewer needs.
- Human-controlled release
- People approve vendors, purchase orders, exceptions, payment batches, journal entries, and close sign-offs at the authority boundary.
- Exception ownership
- Mismatches, missing records, aged queues, and control breaches receive a named owner, due date, disposition, and escalation path.
Start with one finance handoff
Map the queue where records stop being enough.
Choose a recurring approval, matching, reconciliation, or exception path. Define the evidence it needs, the person who decides, and the signal that should move it forward.