Human in the loop
What is Human in the loop? A way of working where AI drafts or recommends, and a person approves before anything is posted, filed or paid.
In plain words
the software does the typing, matching and drafting, and a person makes the decision. The person can see what the AI did and why, and can approve it, change it or turn it down.
It is the opposite of an automatic process that runs on its own and tells you afterwards.
A worked example
Your accounts executive asks the Bank Reconciler to match the March bank statement. It matches 412 of 460 lines and lists the other 48 as suggestions, each with its reason.
She spot-checks the 412 and accepts them. She fixes 9 of the 48 and leaves 39 open for the next day. Nothing is posted until she confirms, and the record shows who confirmed it.
These are sample numbers to show the shape of the work, not a promise of a match rate.
Why it matters
- Cost. A wrong entry or a wrong return is your cost, not the software's. A person who approves is accountable, and the approval is on record.
- Deadlines. An agent can prepare a return in minutes, but the review stays. You still decide before the due date, with the work already done.
- Risk. AI can be confidently wrong. A check before money moves or a statutory return goes out catches the error while it is still cheap.
How Kinnow handles it
Kinnow is built so that agents prepare and people decide.
- One approvals inbox. Everything waiting for your sign-off sits in one list, each with a line saying why it is yours. You approve it, or reject it with a reason that goes back to the person who asked.
- Agents stop at the draft. The Reorder Planner never raises a purchase order by itself. The RA-Bill Reviewer holds a bill for review and never posts it. The Close Checklist fills in the checklist, and a person confirms the close.
- Two people for sensitive steps. A hand-typed journal needs an approver who is not its author, and the person who prepared a payroll run cannot approve it or mark it paid. Other splits, such as raising an order and approving its out-of-band discount, you can switch on.
- Returns are prepared, not filed by Kinnow. A second person records the filing after the return is uploaded to the government portal.
The honest limit. Not every step has an approval by default. Ordinary documents, such as a sales invoice, post into the books from their application. You choose which steps wait for whom, and set the amount limits. For example, a hand-typed journal of ₹5,00,000 or more waits for a second person by default, and you can change that limit. Each agent is validated with your company before it works on your books, and agents are rolling out agent by agent.
See which of your own steps should wait for a person. Ask us to walk through your approvals.
Related terms
- Approval workflow: the order of sign-offs a document must get.
- AI agent (in an ERP): software that does one defined job and hands it back.
- Veil: what is held back before any AI sees your data.
- Bank reconciliation: the job in the example above.
Questions
Does human in the loop slow things down?
It changes where the time goes. The agent does the matching and drafting, and your person reviews the result and deals with the exceptions, instead of building everything by hand. How much time that saves depends on your data, so each agent is checked on your own books before it starts work.
Who decides what a person has to approve?
You do, with us at set-up. Each approval step names a role, and Kinnow turns that into named people, including their stand-ins. Amount limits you set decide which documents need a second person.
What if the AI is wrong and I approve it anyway?
The record shows who approved and when. A wrong entry is reversed rather than deleted, so the trail stays complete. Rejections need a written reason, and your approvals and corrections are recorded so you can see how each agent performs on your books.
Want to see an approval from the approver's side? Request a demo and we will show the inbox with your own examples.