AI prepares the work. A partner approves it. Kroy makes sure it happens in that order.

Business situation

A London accountancy practice requires partner sign-off on every set of accounts before it goes to a client. Managers now use Claude to help prepare the work, and the partners want to be sure that AI involvement never shortens the review. They also want to see, at a glance, what is waiting for them.

Why existing tools alone are insufficient

In most tools, approval is a status anyone with edit rights can set — including an AI acting on their behalf. Nothing distinguishes “the partner approved this” from “an agent with the partner’s login clicked approve”. And approval requests scattered across email and chat are easy to miss.

Systems involved

• Xero — the client’s trial balance and reports.
• SharePoint — working papers.
• Kroy — the accounts Artifact, the approval queue and the review points.
• Microsoft Teams — where partners are notified.

Kroy architecture

Both AIs connect to Kroy. The manager uses Claude with the Prepare Accounts for Review Skill. The partner uses Microsoft Copilot with the Summarise Approval Queue Skill. The practice’s policy reserves approval.grant for people with the Partner role, acting directly, and forbids approving work you prepared.

Workflow

1. The manager asks Claude: “Prepare ABC Limited’s accounts for partner review.”
2. Kroy returns the trial balance from Xero and the working papers from SharePoint. Claude drafts the accounts and a summary of judgement areas, saved with artifact.create.
3. The manager asks: “Approve it so we can send it.” Claude requests approval.grant. Kroy refuses: agents cannot approve, and the manager prepared the work.
4. Claude requests approval.request for the partner. Kroy adds the item to the partner’s queue and posts a notice to the partner’s Teams channel with teams.message.post.
5. The partner asks Copilot: “What is waiting for my approval, and what should I look at first?” Copilot reads the queue with approval.queue.read and summarises the judgement areas.
6. The partner asks Copilot: “Approve ABC Limited.” Kroy refuses: approval must be given by the partner directly, not through an agent.
7. The partner opens the item in Kroy, raises one review point, sees it resolved, and approves. The accounts are marked final.

Agent permissions

Claude can prepare work and request approval. Copilot can read and summarise the queue. Neither can grant approval, under any delegation.

Human permissions

Managers prepare and resolve review points. Partners approve work in their portfolio, and cannot approve work they prepared themselves.

State changes

• The accounts Artifact moves from Draft to Awaiting partner, then Approved and Final.
• The review point is recorded and closed.
• The approval is linked to the partner, the time and the version approved.

Audit outcome

Kroy records who prepared the work, which agent helped, each refused approval attempt, the review point and the partner’s approval — against the exact version approved.

Security considerations

• Approval authority is a policy in Kroy, not a button the AI can press.
• The approval is tied to a specific version, so later edits require fresh approval.
• Copilot’s access to the queue is read-only.

Setup requirements

• Partner and Manager roles defined in Kroy, with portfolios.
• Xero and Microsoft 365 connected to Kroy.
• Claude and Microsoft Copilot connected to Kroy.
• The approval policy configured for accounts Artifacts.