Consulting Practice
Trace a proposal recommendation
A proposed scope change needs a record of which client notes supported it and who approved it.
Traceability
Free Canadian small business workbook
AI Decision Traceability Log
A worksheet for recording what the AI saw, retrieved, inferred, recommended, and what people decided.
7 pages · PDF workbook · No email required
Preview the complete PDF All 7 pages · Free to explore
Scroll through the full workbook below. Download the PDF for selectable text, printing and your own working copy.
What’s inside
A working guide
for a real decision.
Create a practical decision receipt across context, source evidence, model output, tool use, reviewer judgment, overrides, and final action. Use this guide to make the operating choice explicit, test it with evidence, and record who owns the next decision.
Who this is for
Finance, HR, legal, lending, grants, procurement, case management, and customer escalation.
Bring the people who own the work
Include the workflow owner, a person who performs the work, a reviewer with authority to approve or stop it, and the relevant data or tool owner.
Includes an explainer, working worksheet, three illustrative examples and practical considerations. This is a planning PDF, not prebuilt automation software.
Use it with your own work
Five questions
to work through.
Choose one workflow. Record enough context to support a decision, then use the worksheet to name the owner, evidence and next review.
Input
What user request or workflow trigger started the decision?
Retrieved
Which sources, records, or memories were used?
Inferred
What did the model infer beyond the raw source material?
Reviewed
Who reviewed the recommendation and what evidence did they inspect?
Acted
What final decision, message, task, or tool action occurred?
Illustrative examples from the workbook
Where this becomes practical.
Independent Retailer
Trace a reorder decision
The owner wants to know whether a stock suggestion came from sales, supplier notes, or stale assumptions.
Accounting Practice
Trace an exception brief
Reviewers must reconstruct the figures, source documents, corrections, and final professional judgment.
- AI-supported role
- Record source IDs, retrieved facts, proposed recommendations, confidence limits, and tool receipts.
- Human authority
- The approver records the final decision, rationale, overrides, and downstream action.
- What to measure
- Track missing provenance, unexplained overrides, audit retrieval time, and disputed decisions.
Illustrative scenarios, not client results or a promise of performance. The workbook includes additional case-specific prompts.
A useful first step
Use the workbook.
Bring us the next question.
Download and use it without booking a call. If you want help applying it, email Chris with the workflow you’re considering and what you want to improve.
Discuss your workflowFurther reading in the library
General operational guidance only. These resources are not legal, privacy, cybersecurity or regulatory advice.