Case management for regulated finance exception work
Latch gives banks and finance teams one platform to manage refund approvals, reversals, write-offs, and overrides as governed case workflows. Maker-checker controls, segregation of duties, and an immutable audit log are enforced at the platform level — not scattered across Slack, email, and spreadsheets. Deploy on-prem to meet data residency requirements.
record → restrict → execute → prove
Exception workflows break when urgency outruns structure
Finance controls do not usually fail on the standard path. They fail on the urgent, unusual, or high-risk path where one operator has too much discretion and the evidence trail gets rebuilt later.
Reversals and corrections
When a customer is affected, teams rush to fix it first and figure out the paperwork later.
Write-offs and adjustments
High-value exceptions need someone to prepare the case and a different person to approve it before anything moves.
Reprocessing
Re-running a failed transaction gets risky when only one person knows the steps, the scope, and what to document.
Urgent overrides
Time pressure is exactly when independent review and clear evidence matter most — and when they are most likely to be skipped.
One person prepares. Another reviews. The system enforces it.
Different industries use different terms — four-eyes principle, maker-checker, dual control, segregation of duties — but the goal is the same: no single person can both prepare and approve a sensitive action. Latch enforces this at the system level — see how two-person review works inside the case.
The plain-language version: one person prepares, another reviews independently before the action runs. Also called four-eyes principle.
The finance industry term for the same idea. Common in payments, treasury, and any workflow where money moves.
A broader term for shared control over sensitive activity across people, roles, or systems.
The design choice that keeps incompatible responsibilities from collapsing into one role. Also called segregation of duties.
How Latch supports two-person review without pushing control back into Slack
Latch is not another approval inbox. It keeps the case context, the role restrictions, the actions, and the full trail in one record — so review and proof happen where the work happens.
One case record
Notes, attachments, status changes, and any actions taken on external systems all stay on the same case.
Role-based access to actions
Only people in the right roles can run sensitive actions. The system checks before anything executes.
Clear permission rules
Who can do what is defined in the system, not passed down through memory or informal agreement.
Blocked attempts are visible
When someone tries to take an action they are not allowed to perform, that attempt is recorded — not silently hidden.
Full action history
Every action records what was requested, what the external system returned, and whether it succeeded or failed.
Audit trail on the case
Who did what, when they did it, and the evidence behind each decision — all in one place.
Start with the exception paths that are already hard to explain
The first workflows to bring into this model are the ones that already feel painful: not enough evidence, too much informal escalation, or too much reliance on individual memory.
One person prepares the case and attaches evidence. Only an approved role can run the reversal. The result is written back to the case automatically.
The reason, the supporting notes, and the outcome all stay on the same case — not spread across inboxes and spreadsheets.
The option to re-run a transaction only appears when the case qualifies. Success, failure, and any follow-up are recorded in the same timeline.
When a case is handed off to another team, the full context travels with it and the originating team keeps a record of what happened next.
The real test is whether one case can answer the hard questions
Control owners do not want to piece together a story from fragments. They want to open one record and see: what the team knew, who was allowed to act, what happened when someone tried, and what the outcome was.
Read more about the control story
These articles break the topic into terminology, evidence, workflow design, and concrete finance examples.
Maker-Checker: Independent Review Before Execution
Four-Eyes Principle, Maker-Checker, and Segregation of Duties: What Actually Differs
What Auditors Need to See in a High-Risk Approval Workflow
How to Run Four-Eyes Control Without Inbox Approvals
Finance Exception Handling Needs Four-Eyes Control
Audit Trails That Answer the Real Questions
What to Log When Operators Trigger External Actions
Turn Reprocessing from Tribal Knowledge into a Plugin Action
Questions finance and control owners usually ask
Common questions from finance and control teams evaluating whether Latch fits their review and audit requirements.
Does Latch have a built-in approval inbox?
No. Instead of a separate approval inbox, Latch keeps the review step inside the case itself. The case record holds the context, the role restrictions, the action history, and any blocked attempts — so reviewers work from the same place as everyone else.
How does two-person review (four-eyes control) work in practice?
Latch enforces maker-checker at the system level. One person builds the case: adds notes, attaches evidence, and moves it to the right stage. A different person in the required role reviews and runs the action. The person who prepared the case cannot self-approve — the system blocks the attempt and records it. Both steps happen on the same case, and both are recorded.
What can an auditor see after the fact?
The full case history: the original issue, operator notes, attachments, who tried to act, whether any attempts were blocked, what the external system returned, and the final outcome. Everything is on one record — no need to dig through email threads.
Is this only for large finance teams?
No. A three-person fintech team processing refunds in Stripe benefits just as much as a 50-person payment operations team. The principles are the same — two-person review, role checks, and a record of what happened. The scale is different.
See how a high-risk finance workflow would run inside Latch
Pick one real workflow — a reversal, a write-off, a reprocessing path — and we will walk through how the case, the controls, and the audit trail work end to end.