Segregation of duties (SoD) is an internal control principle that splits responsibility for a transaction across different people, so no single individual can both execute and conceal an error or fraud. Classic examples: the person who creates a supplier should not be the one who pays it, and whoever approves an invoice should not be whoever records the payment.
SoD is a foundational control because it removes single points of failure. When several hands touch a payment (requesting, approving, executing) collusion becomes much harder and honest mistakes are more likely to be caught down the chain.
In smaller finance teams, SoD is hard to enforce. There are simply not enough people to separate every duty, and a solo or part-time function may concentrate many roles in one person, exactly where the risk is highest.
Phacet adds an independent, automated control layer that does not depend on headcount. The agent that controls supplier billing and the three-way matching agent verify each invoice regardless of who entered it, while the agent that detects fake IBAN fraud guards payment details independently. Every check is logged in a native audit trail, an objective record no single person can quietly override.
SoD spreads control across people. Phacet adds a control that runs no matter how few people there are, strengthening the principle especially where teams are too small to apply it fully.
