Field guides · 03
Giving an agent a budget,
and the mandate it works inside
A kit for a small team whose agents have started spending money: what they touch, a one-page mandate, limits, Friday receipts.
Field guide 0310 pages · 6 steps · 5 checklists · 4 templatesPDF and templates in one ZIPOctober 2026 edition
Who it's for
Your agents already spend money,
the question is on whose card
For a small team whose agents buy data, credits and services, and may soon be asked to pay a supplier.
It starts small. A research agent needs a search API, so someone pastes in a key on their own card. A coding agent buys credits. An operations script books the software charges it finds on the card statement and, a month later, someone asks whether it could also pay the printer's invoice.
None of that is reckless. But it means agents are spending under permissions nobody wrote down, on cards issued to people, with no end date. The fix is what a finance team would do, sized down: write what each agent may do with money, give it its own money to do it with, and decide in advance what happens when it reaches the edge.
The short version
The guide's rules first,
the pages show how to set up each one
Every agent that spends gets its own money: a funded wallet or a prepaid card. Never a person's card.
Every mandate has a purpose, a budget, a ceiling per payment and an end date. No end date, no mandate.
Payments to people from your bank accounts are proposed by the agent and signed by a person.
A new agent proposes before it acts; it moves up after enough of its proposals are accepted.
What's inside
6 steps, in setup order,
each ending in a checklist or a template
- Step 1What your agents touchYou can't limit what you haven't listed.Template 1, the agent inventory, and the questions for each rowp. 3
- Step 2The mandate on one pageShort enough to sign, specific enough to refuse.Template 2, the mandatep. 4
- Step 3Its own moneyThe deposit is the ceiling, and nothing stands behind it.A checklist before an agent spends its first dollarp. 5
- Step 4Past the edgeDecide now what happens at the limit.Template 3, the exceptionsp. 6
- Step 5Watched before trustedProposals first, then a little room.A checklist for when an agent is ready to act alonep. 7
- Step 6Receipts on FridayFifteen minutes, once a week.Template 4, the Friday review, and what every agent payment answersp. 8
- The caseA morning at NorthwindAn agent asked to pay the printer, and it waited for a person, as it should. Why that stays a proposal even for a supplier paid for years.p. 9
The 4 templates, in the same download
- 01-agent-inventory.csv
- Listing what each agent touches
- 02-agent-mandate.csv
- The page a person signs
- 03-exceptions.csv
- What happens at each limit
- 04-friday-review.csv
- The weekly fifteen minutes
The illustrative case
Northwind Studio is a demo company,
its books seeded in Orla
Northwind runs three agents, all connected by the founder. research-bot buys data and compute for client research from its own wallet. ops-runner sorts the books and drafts supplier payments, still in observation mode. invoice-chaser reminds clients about late invoices and spends nothing.
Northwind is a demo company. Its books are seeded in Orla, and every screenshot in the guide is a frame recorded from the working product on those books. The names, amounts and addresses are invented.
The guides are general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. What applies to your company is a question for your accountant and, where a country's rules come in, a local adviser.
After you ask
One email, with one link,
and nothing else unless you ask
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