Agentic finance, defined.
Plain-language definitions of the terms that come up when finance teams evaluate automation.
Agentic AI
Software that takes a goal, breaks it into steps, uses tools and data to carry them out, checks its own results, and hands decisions to a human when needed. In finance, it completes workflows rather than assisting with single steps.
Touchless processing
A transaction that flows from start to finish with no human intervention because it met all the rules and tolerances. The touchless rate is the share of volume that clears this way.
Three-way matching
Confirming that a purchase order, a receipt, and an invoice agree before a bill is paid. Mismatches become exceptions for review.
DSO (Days Sales Outstanding)
The average number of days it takes to collect cash after a sale. Lower DSO means cash arrives sooner.
Dunning
The sequence of reminders and escalations sent to collect an overdue invoice. Effective dunning is consistent and proportionate to the age of the debt.
Continuous reconciliation
Matching transactions as they occur rather than only at month-end, so breaks surface immediately and the close inherits finished reconciliations.
Flux analysis
Explaining the variance in a financial line against budget or a prior period. Often the slowest, most manual part of reporting.
Human-in-the-loop
A control model where agents prepare and propose, but a human approves every financial action. The goal is approvals that are fast, informed, and rare.
Guardrails
The configured limits that define what an agent may do autonomously and what always requires human approval — for example, dollar thresholds or account types.
Immutable audit trail
An append-only record of every action — who, what, when, and on what basis — written at the moment it happens and impossible to quietly alter.
Segregation of duties (SoD)
Separating incompatible responsibilities so that no single party both prepares and approves a transaction. Holds whether the preparer is a person or an agent.
Cash application
Matching an incoming payment to the open invoices it settles, so the receivable closes and DSO reflects the collected cash.
Provenance
The traceable source of a number — which records, definitions, and filters produced it — so it can be trusted and defended.
Have a term we should add?
Tell us what you’re evaluating and we’ll point you to the right guide.