The same named signatories who approved payments before the agent arrived, chosen by value band from your delegation of authority. The agent prepares; it never approves, and nor does the person who configured it. Each approval is recorded against a named individual, with the evidence they saw, so accountability for the payment sits with a person.
Why doesn't the agent change who approves?
An agent changes who prepares the payment, not who answers for it. Before, a payables clerk prepared the run and a manager approved it. Now the agent prepares and the manager still approves. Your delegation of authority, bank mandates and dual-signature rules stay in force.
What does change is the role of the clerk. If the clerk used to prepare the run, the clerk should not now become its approver, even though they understand it best. That would collapse preparation and approval into one person's view of the agent's work.
How is approval assigned?
By value band and by risk, written into a matrix the platform enforces. A typical shape:
| Payment | Prepared by | First approver | Second approver |
|---|---|---|---|
| Routine supplier, under 10,000 | Agent | Payables manager | None, or a sampling reviewer |
| Routine supplier, 10,000 to 100,000 | Agent | Payables manager | Financial controller |
| Above 100,000 | Agent | Financial controller | Finance director |
| New supplier or changed bank details | Agent, after a person verified the change | Financial controller | Finance director |
| Urgent or off-cycle | Agent | Financial controller | A director, with written reason |
| Payroll | Agent, from approved changes | Head of payroll | Finance director |
The full template is in the approval matrix for agent-prepared payments. Payments are one kind of held action; the general rules on who approves an AI agent's held actions apply across other functions too.
What does the approver need to see?
An approval is only as good as what the approver looks at. For each payment, the held item should show:
- the invoice, order and receipt the agent matched, and how well they matched;
- where each fact came from: the ledger, the supplier master, or an email;
- anything unusual the agent noticed, such as a first payment to an account or an amount well above the supplier's normal range;
- which bound held the payment and why.
A one-line summary with an approve button invites rubber-stamping.
A worked example
Take a logistics firm's weekly run of 300 payments. The agent prepares the run and groups it. Two hundred and eighty routine payments under 10,000 go to the payables manager as one batch, with exceptions flagged at the top. Eighteen between 10,000 and 100,000 go to the manager and then the controller. Two payments go to the controller and finance director: one above 100,000, and one to a haulier whose bank details changed three weeks ago, already verified by phone.
The finance director rejects nothing but asks why the large payment is a week early. The agent's note shows the supplier offered an early-payment discount. The decision, and the reason, are filed with her name.
How do auditors view this?
Auditors look for the same things they always have: authorisation by the right person, separation of duties, and evidence that the approver reviewed something real. The difference is that they will also want to see how the agent prepared the payment and what the approver was shown. Our answer on how auditors treat transactions prepared by an AI agent covers what they test.
Which controls make the answer hold?
- The agent holds no release rights. Approval and release happen in the bank or payables system under named people.
- The matrix is enforced, not just written. The platform routes each payment to the right approvers by value and risk.
- The configurer cannot approve. Whoever sets the agent's limits is kept off its approval routes.
- Approvals expire. An approval given on Monday should not release a changed payment on Friday.
- Everything is filed. Draft, evidence shown, approver, decision and time.
The topic guide AI agents for finance: books you can audit shows where approvals sit in the wider control design.
Questions people ask
Can a second agent act as the second approver?
No. A second agent adds a check, but it is not a second person. Dual authorisation exists so that two people with different views both look.
What if the approver is away?
Use the delegate named in your delegation of authority. Do not raise the agent's limit to avoid the queue, and do not let approvals sit until they expire.
Should approvers see the agent's confidence?
They should see what the agent was unsure of and why, in plain words. A bare confidence score tends to be trusted too much when high and ignored when low.