Bringing a new reviewer into accounts payable takes five stages: limited access and red lines before day one, shadowing on held payments, the shared foundation and reviewer training, a marked practicum on real invoices, and sign-off that grants approval rights up to a stated limit. The checklist below covers each item, its owner and when it counts as done.
What does an accounts payable reviewer decide?
The agent in accounts payable reads invoices, matches them to purchase orders and goods received, codes them, and schedules payment. Matching and coding are depth 3 work within bounds. Paying is depth 4: money leaves the business and is hard to get back. So the reviewer meets three kinds of held action most days: payments above the agent's limit, invoices that fail the match, and anything touching supplier bank details.
That last one carries the most risk. A supplier bank detail change that arrives by email is an external claim, and an external claim cannot authorise a payment. The reviewer must verify it through a separate channel before anything is paid to the new account. A reviewer who approves a well-formatted change request because it looks routine has turned a fraud attempt into a loss. For background on the function itself, see what accounts payable is.
How do you use the checklist?
The accounts payable lead owns the checklist and ticks each item with a date. The new reviewer keeps a copy. Nothing in stage 5 happens until every earlier item is ticked. Keep the completed checklist with the reviewer's training record, because if a payment they approved is later questioned, you will need to show what they had been trained on at the time.
The teaching method behind stages 2 to 4 is covered in how to train the accounts payable team to review AI agent decisions. The general order of training is in the guide to training teams for AI agents.
The checklist
| Stage | Item | Owner | Done when |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Before day one | Read-only workspace access set up; no approval rights | AP lead | Access confirmed |
| 1 | Agent's capabilities and depths shared (matching, coding, scheduling, payment) | AP lead | Reviewer has read them |
| 1 | Red lines given in writing: no payment to changed bank details without call-back verification; no approval of own-raised invoices | AP lead | Reviewer has signed |
| 2. Shadowing | Half a day beside a certified reviewer on held payments | Buddy | Done |
| 2 | Watch one held bank detail change verified by phone | Buddy | Done |
| 2 | Watch one failed three-way match resolved | Buddy | Done |
| 3. Training | Shared foundation completed and test passed | Reviewer | Score recorded |
| 3 | Reviewer modules completed | Reviewer | Recorded |
| 3 | Written exam passed | Reviewer | Score recorded |
| 4. Practicum | Two weeks of real held decisions, checked by a certified reviewer | Reviewer and buddy | Record complete |
| 4 | Practicum includes a suspected duplicate, a changed bank detail and a payment over limit | AP lead | Cases listed |
| 4 | Incident drill taken part in | AP lead | Drill logged |
| 5. Sign-off | Assessor sign-off | Assessor | Signed and dated |
| 5 | Approval rights granted up to a stated payment limit | AP lead | Rights recorded |
| 5 | Renewal date set and added to the team register | AP lead | Date recorded |
What does a completed checklist look like?
An illustrative manufacturing business takes on Sample Reviewer G in an accounts payable team of five. The agent schedules payments up to 5,000 at depth 4 within bounds; anything above, and any payment within 30 days of a bank detail change, is held.
Stage 1 is ticked the day before she starts. In stage 2, she watches her buddy hold a payment to a long-standing supplier whose bank details changed by email the previous week; the buddy calls the supplier on the number in the master file and finds the change was not theirs. In stage 3, she completes the foundation in week 1, modules by week 4 and passes the exam in week 5. Her practicum in weeks 6 and 7 includes 120 held items; she catches a duplicate invoice with a changed reference number. She takes part in an incident drill on a lapsed agent certificate, following the format in how to run an AI agent incident drill for the accounts payable team. Sign-off comes at the end of week 7, with approval rights up to 25,000 and renewal 12 months on.
Where the Academy fits
Pryme Intelligence Academy covers stages 3 to 5. Operator gives the modules, the 40-question written exam with a pass mark of 32 of 40, and the two-week practicum: at least 95 in every 100 decisions correct, no missed red line, signed off by a Pryme assessor. The certificate is issued through VerifyDoc.ai, so an auditor can check it at source.
Questions people ask
Should a new reviewer approve payments during the practicum?
Their decisions are recorded, but a certified reviewer confirms each one before it takes effect. That way the practicum uses real cases without exposing the business to an untested approver.
How does this differ from a lending team checklist?
Both centre on money moving, but the risks differ. Accounts payable faces supplier fraud and duplicates; lending faces affordability and adverse decisions. Compare with the reviewer onboarding checklist for the lending team.
Who should check decisions during the practicum?
A certified reviewer, ideally one who also brings an outside eye, such as a colleague from compliance or another finance team. The reviewer onboarding checklist for the compliance team shows how compliance reviewers are themselves brought up to that standard.