# Giving an agent a budget, and the mandate it works inside

URL: https://www.orla.finance/en/guides/agent-mandate
Markdown twin of that page. Append `.md` to any Orla page URL to get one.

A kit for a small team whose software agents have started spending money: an inventory of what they touch, a one-page mandate, separate money for each agent, what happens past the limit, a watch period before trust, and the receipts you read on Friday.

Field guide 03, October 2026 edition: 10 pages · 6 steps · 5 checklists · 4 templates. Free: a PDF and its templates in one ZIP, sent by email from https://www.orla.finance/en/guides/agent-mandate.

#### 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

- 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

1. What your agents touch: You can't limit what you haven't listed. Template 1, the agent inventory, and the questions for each row (page 3).
2. The mandate on one page: Short enough to sign, specific enough to refuse. Template 2, the mandate (page 4).
3. Its own money: The deposit is the ceiling, and nothing stands behind it. A checklist before an agent spends its first dollar (page 5).
4. Past the edge: Decide now what happens at the limit. Template 3, the exceptions (page 6).
5. Watched before trusted: Proposals first, then a little room. A checklist for when an agent is ready to act alone (page 7).
6. Receipts on Friday: Fifteen minutes, once a week. Template 4, the Friday review, and what every agent payment answers (page 8).
- A morning at Northwind: An 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. (page 9).

#### The templates

- 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 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.