How to run a two-week practicum for financial controllers

Unlike most practicums, this one should straddle a month-end close. Ten working days that include the close give the controller real held journals, reconciliation sign-offs, variance commentary and limit decisions. A certified peer decides each item independently and co-signs anything that posts. The bar is at least 95 decisions in every 100 right and no missed red line, such as approving a journal on external evidence alone.

What is the practicum, and who owns it?

A financial controller working with a close agent signs off what the agent prepared, approves what it held and sets the limits it works within. The practicum tests those three roles together on a real close, because the pressure of close is where judgement slips.

The finance director owns the practicum and names the peer reviewer: another controller with a current certificate, ideally from a different entity or business unit. The controller owns their decisions and reasons. The external auditor is not involved, but the log should be something an auditor could read.

How do you build the queue?

Plan the fortnight so the close falls in the middle, giving a week before and a few days after. Around 12 decisions a day across the close produces 120 or so. Include:

• journals the agent drafted and held: above the controller's limit, unusual accounts, non-routine reclassifications;
• bank and balance sheet reconciliations prepared by the agent, with exceptions to sign off or send back;
• variance commentary drafted by the agent, to accept or rewrite;
• intercompany breaks the agent flagged;
• limit decisions: whether to change the agent's posting limits after its latest recertification.

Seed anonymised past items if the close is unusually clean. For example, a seeded journal might reclassify a large expense to capital, supported by a supplier's emailed description of the work. The email is external. The controller should hold the journal and ask for the contract or the project approval, which is signed or sealed, before approving.

The steps

1. Person (finance director): brief the controller on the bar, red lines and log.
2. Agent, depth 1: route held journals, reconciliations and commentary for the controller's entity to the practicum queue.
3. Agent, depth 2: present each item with its draft, the deciding bound and the evidence, marked by provenance.
4. Person (controller): decide, with a reason.
5. Person (peer reviewer): decide independently, then compare.
6. Person (peer reviewer): co-sign every journal posted and every reconciliation signed during the practicum.
7. Agent, depth 1: log both decisions, the match and any red-line flag.
8. Person (peer reviewer, then assessor): review the log after the close.

How do you set and apply the bar?

A decision is correct if it matches the peer's or the peer agrees it was sound. For commentary, correct means the stated cause is the real one, not that the wording matches.

The red lines: approving a journal on external evidence alone; signing a reconciliation with unexplained exceptions; changing the agent's limits and then approving held journals under the same change, which breaks segregation of duties; posting into a locked period. One miss fails the practicum.

Limit decisions deserve a note. After each recertification the controller may raise or lower the agent's posting limits. In the practicum, the controller should justify each proposed change from the evidence, and the peer should agree before it takes effect.

For example, if the agent's accrual postings were recertified at depth 3 and the evidence covered accruals up to a value of 20,000, a controller who proposes a posting limit of 50,000 has gone beyond what the evidence shows. A limit of 20,000 or lower is defensible. The controller should say which cases support the figure chosen.

Which controls matter, and what evidence do they leave?

• Peer co-signature. Evidence: both names on each journal and reconciliation in the append-only record.
• Segregation check. Evidence: limit changes and journal approvals made by different people.
• Independent peer decisions. Evidence: logged before comparison.
• Debrief after each close day. Evidence: a line per mismatch.
• Full log. Evidence: the practicum log template for financial controllers.

What should you measure?

Correct decisions out of the total, by type. Red-line misses (zero). Post-close adjustments to anything the controller approved during the practicum, measured a month later. And close duration against the previous close, watched for corners cut rather than as a target.

Where does it usually go wrong?

The practicum avoids close to make supervision easier. Then the controller is untested on the days that matter.

The peer is junior and defers. Choose a peer at the same level.

Commentary is accepted because it reads well. The agent can describe a variance fluently and name the wrong cause.

The log is kept in a spreadsheet the controller can edit. Keep it in the record or a locked copy. On responsibility after sign-off, see are financial controllers accountable for an AI agent's mistakes. Credit control runs a related practicum with the practicum log template for credit controllers; compare running a practicum for credit controllers.

Where the Academy fits

Pryme Intelligence Academy's Certified Pryme Operator practicum is two weeks of real review decisions, at least 95 in every 100 correct and no missed red line, signed off by a Pryme assessor. Its modules on usage and billing and on when something goes wrong suit controllers, who answer for the numbers. More in the guide to AI literacy and certification for people who work with agents.