What practitioners said after the drills

Expense Policy Automation Studio · 2025 cohort

Cutting hospitality false flags before festive season

A Selangor logistics AP team entered the studio with 400+ weekly exceptions, many tied to staff meals during peak delivery weeks. After mapping informal “team dinner” norms against written policy, they retired two vendor-template rules and introduced a capped category with manager attestation.

Within one month-end cycle, queued items dropped enough that a single reviewer could clear the board without weekend overtime. Internal audit later reused their sampling memo during a subsidiary walkthrough.

Reservation noted by the team: OCR still misreads handwritten tips, so those claims remain manual — documented as a known ceiling rather than a failed automation project.

Controllers Circle · private walkthrough

Aligning three offices on one override vocabulary

A firm with desks in KL, Penang, and a small Kajang back-office used Controllers Circle seats so AP, finance systems, and an internal auditor attended together. The private walkthrough focused on override reasons that previously differed by office slang.

They left with a shared pick-list of seven rationales and a weekly digest for the controller. The digest is short on purpose — twelve lines — so it survives busy closing weeks.