SCOPE, MODE AND SOURCE REGISTER Mode: CAPTURE only, per explicit instruction — no DESIGN section will be produced this run. S01 — Expense Approval Policy v2, section 3. DOCUMENTED RULE. S02 — Payroll lead interview. REPORTED PRACTICE (explicitly self-flagged by the interviewee as inconsistent — "sometimes sits for weeks"). S03 — ER-4471 action example. RECORDED EVENT (submission only; no decision recorded). Authority limits: single-approver model (direct manager), no documented delegation or backup path — this absence is preserved as UNKNOWN, not filled in. No inaccessible material — all three inputs were fully readable. CURRENT STATE AS01 — Expense submitted by employee, routed to direct manager. Source: S01. DOCUMENTED RULE. AS02 — Manager approves or does not respond. Source: S01 (approval requirement) + S02 (reported delay pattern). Transition AS01→AS02 is DOCUMENTED RULE; the delay/no-backup behavior observed at AS02 is REPORTED PRACTICE, not itself a documented rule — kept distinct per the source register above. AS03 — Approved report submitted to payroll, reimbursed within 5 business days. Source: S01. DOCUMENTED RULE. UNKNOWN BRANCH: what happens when a manager is unavailable for an extended period (the reported multi-week delay) is not covered by any supplied policy. This is the single largest gap in the current-state map — flagged, not resolved by inventing a backup-approver assumption. GAP AND DECISION REGISTER G01 — Affected step: AS02. Evidence: S02 (reported practice describing weeks-long delays). Practical effect: reports can stall indefinitely with no defined escalation, delegation, or timeout. Owner decision needed: should a backup-approver or timeout-escalation rule be defined, and if so, at what threshold? G02 — Affected step: AS01→AS02. Evidence: S01 states only "direct manager" as approver with no alternate named anywhere. Practical effect: if a manager role is vacant or the manager leaves the company, there is no documented rule for who approves in their place. Owner decision needed: does an org-chart escalation (skip-level manager) apply by default, or does this require explicit new policy? PROPOSED STATE Not produced — CAPTURE-only mode was explicitly requested. If DESIGN mode is added in a future run, G01 and G02 above are the natural starting points. ACTION-REVIEW PACKET — ER-4471 Request/version: ER-4471, no version increments recorded (single submission, no resubmission). Payload: employee E-9002, amount $340, category "travel," submitted 2026-09-01. Diff from previous version: N/A — first and only submission. Affected scope: reimbursement of $340 to employee E-9002 via payroll. Evidence and policy clause: S01 section 3 (amount is under the $500 threshold, so single manager approval applies — no finance-level review required per the supplied policy). Eligibility and required reviews: one approval, from E-9002's direct manager. Independence: not explicitly addressed in S01 (no stated rule that the approver cannot also be the requester, though a "direct manager" framing implies this is structurally unlikely here) — noted as an assumption resting on organizational structure, not an explicit policy statement. Expiry/conditions: no expiry rule is documented anywhere in S01 for expense approvals (contrast: the built-in refund-workflow demonstration elsewhere in this tool has an explicit 30-minute expiry — this policy has no equivalent, and that absence is stated, not assumed away). Consequences: approve → routes to payroll per AS03; reject → outcome not specified in supplied policy (does the employee get notified? can they resubmit?) — UNKNOWN, flagged. Recovery facts and unknowns: current approval status as of data pull: no decision recorded. Days elapsed since submission: not calculable without today's date, which was not supplied — this tool does not invent a current date to assess how "stale" this request is. Unresolved blockers: none block packet readiness itself (all decision-critical facts for evaluating THIS request are present); the G01/G02 gaps are systemic, not blockers to reviewing ER-4471 on its own merits. Packet readiness: READY FOR AUTHORISED REVIEW. QUALITY GATE Q1 PASS — all current-state claims trace to S01 or S02 with correct evidence typing. Q2 PASS — DOCUMENTED RULE, REPORTED PRACTICE, and the explicit absence of a DESIGN section stay cleanly separated. Q3 PASS — no invented delegation or backup-approver authority; the gap is named, not filled. Q4 PASS — the single lifecycle transition sequence (submit→approve→ reimburse) is fully covered; the "manager unavailable" branch is correctly marked UNKNOWN rather than silently assumed. Q5 PASS — ER-4471's packet has every decision-critical fact present (amount, threshold comparison, approver identity) available. Q6 PASS — one current-state flow, one action example, two gaps — all accounted for; no walkthrough contradicts the tables above. OVERALL: REVIEWABLE WORKFLOW DRAFT WITH OPEN GAPS (G01/G02 remain open by design — CAPTURE mode does not resolve gaps, only surfaces them for a future DESIGN pass.) TOP QUESTIONS (max 4) 1. Should a backup-approver or timeout-escalation rule be added for when a manager is unavailable for an extended period? 2. Is there an implicit skip-level-manager fallback when a manager role is vacant, or does this need new explicit policy? 3. What happens on rejection — is the employee notified, and can they resubmit the same report or must they submit a new one? 4. Is manager/requester independence formally required, or only true in practice because of how the org chart happens to be structured?