Your reviewer is trained. Then they are backed.
The reviewer is the one human role on this desk, so the training aims squarely at them — and the support behind them is named, not a shared inbox.
What your reviewer learns.
- The ledger — cycles, queues, the control register, roles and permissions
- The client — chart of accounts, coding conventions, approval matrix, tolerances, close calendar
- The desk — each duty, preparer or reviewer, what it hands over and why
- The review queue — what each proposal is asking, how to accept, amend or overrule
- The control boundary — what the desk refuses, what to do when it refuses, and how to explain it to a client's auditor
- The close drill — a full practice close on historical data before the first live one
- The month cycle — scorecard, statement, FX basis, reconciliation of your own income
Delivered as a written handbook plus live sessions during phase 3, then practised through the parallel run. Your reviewer works the queue against real output for four days, and completes one full practice close, before anything they accept reaches a client's ledger.
Five levels, named.
| Level | Who | Handles | Response expectation |
|---|---|---|---|
| L1 | Your reviewer | The review queue, coding challenges, break investigation | Same working day |
| L2 | Akontec delivery manager | Rule conflicts, desk behaviour, SLA risk, allocation questions | Within 4 working hours |
| L2c | Akontec finance lead | Technical accounting questions the reviewer wants a second view on | Within 1 working day |
| L3 | Akontec account manager | Client-side issues, scope disputes, commercial questions | Within 1 working day |
| L4–L5 | Function head → Director | Control incidents, quality remediation, continuity, contractual matters | Within 2 working days · control incidents same day |
L2c exists only on this file. Your reviewer will occasionally hit a treatment question that is genuinely technical, and the honest answer is that they should be able to ask someone rather than guess.
First 90 days
Named delivery manager, weekly review call, rule tuning on request, close-week check-in for the first two closes, and direct escalation without a ticket queue.
Ongoing
Platform and control maintenance, chart-of-accounts and policy updates pushed and re-benched, weekly QC sampling, monthly scorecard, ledger updates as they ship.
Continuity
Desk backed up daily with a defined restore target. On a platform-side incident Akontec targets resumption within 24 hours with a written cause report. Close-period incidents carry a shorter target because a missed close is not recoverable next week.
Ask what happens on working day two of your first close.
It is the right question. The answer is a practice close already completed, a check-in scheduled, and a finance lead your reviewer can call.