Independent review

Nothing goes to a provider and no execution is signed off on the word of the person who prepared it. An independent reviewer records a decision on the instruction or execution receipt in front of them: approve, reject or return, with the date, a reason and the revision the decision applies to. Each decision carries its own operation key, so recording it twice does not create two decisions.

The revision is what makes the decision trustworthy. If the trader edits an instruction after the reviewer opened it, the revision moves on and the reviewer’s decision on the old one is refused. The reviewer looks again at the current version before it can be authorized. For execution receipts, the revision is frozen when the receipt is submitted, and the person who prepared the receipt cannot approve it.

Reviewers work from a queue of instructions and receipts waiting for them and keep a history of their own decisions.

• Approve, reject or return. Every decision is one of the three, with a reason.
• No self-approval. The preparer cannot record the decision on their own work.
• Tied to a revision. A decision on an older revision does not count.

Agree who may review which organizations and instruction types, and whether some amounts need a senior reviewer. Agree what a reason must contain for a reject or a return, so the trader knows what to change. Decide how quickly the queue must be cleared during market hours and who covers it when a reviewer is out. Prepare examples of an approval, a return with a clear reason and a rejection.

At 09:40 the review queue shows an instruction to sell a bond position for a pension client. The reviewer opens it, checks the attached mandate and sees the counterparty is not one the client has approved. She records a reject with the reason “counterparty outside client mandate”. The instruction does not move to authorized, and the trader sees the reason on the record.

Later the operations analyst submits an execution receipt for a filled order. The analyst tries to approve it himself; the approval is refused because he prepared it. The reviewer approves it instead, on the frozen revision, and the receipt moves to approved.

• Instructions awaiting review — Instructions in review with amount, counterparty and revision.
• Execution receipts awaiting approval — Submitted receipts with order, instrument and broker execution ID.
• My review decisions — The reviewer’s own decisions with revision, outcome and reason.

• Instruction preparation and review: How a decision authorizes an instruction.
• Execution reconciliation: How receipts are approved.

Review roles and permissions before assigning reviewers.