Put AI to work in your business, with approval gates and a CFO checking the math.
An AI engineer who guides and implements agentic AI, and a fractional CFO. Start with an assessment, then continue with either or both. We build and govern your AI, manage your finances, and prove the return either way.
From $3,000 · 10 business days · fee credited
Palamo was founded by Rocio Palma and Hector Alamo — a CFO with 20+ years in corporate finance and a journalist-turned-AI-engineer.
Who approves what.
Every assessment ships with a map like this one: what the agents may do on their own, who signs off above each limit, and how to undo it.
| Task | Agent acts alone | Who signs off | Undo |
|---|---|---|---|
| Match invoices to purchase orders | Up to $5,000 | Bookkeeper | Unmatch and re-queue |
| Schedule vendor payments | Up to $10,000 | Finance lead | Hold before release |
| Payments above $10,000 | Never alone | Owner and a co-signer | Nothing releases without both |
| Update customer records | Daily batch | Operations lead | Every change versioned, restored in one step |
| Send customer emails | Approved templates only | Account owner | Drafts held until approved |
How an engagement runs
Baseline
We measure what the process costs today — hours, dollars, error rate — so "better" has a number to beat.
→ a baseline scorecard.
Design
We architect the workflow before building it: guardrails, human approval gates, and rollback paths mapped up front.
→ an architecture and governance spec you sign off on.
Build
Iterative delivery in weekly increments, with reliability and safety checks running alongside the code, not bolted on after.
→ a working system, shipped in stages you can see.
Instrument
Before go-live: KPI tracking, audit logging, and a live ROI scorecard wired in, so value and risk are visible from day one in production.
→ an instrumented, audit-ready deployment.
Expand
We scale scope only after the delta metrics prove the last step paid off. You get a reusable, governed pattern — not a pile of one-offs.
→ a validated pattern ready to replicate.
Industry benchmarks (not Palamo results)
Cost per invoice:
$9.40
industry average
vs
$2.78
best-in-class.
Invoice processing time:
9.2 days
industry average
vs
3.1 days
best-in-class.
Month-end close:
accountants using generative AI closed about 7.5 days sooner than peers who did not.
Industry average vs best-in-class AP teams (the 20% with the lowest cost and fastest cycle). Self-reported survey of 212 AP and finance leaders, mostly large enterprises, fielded 2024. Ardent Partners, AP Metrics that Matter in 2025.
AI-using vs non-using accountants on one accounting platform, 79 small and mid-sized firms, 200,000+ records. Choi & Xie (Stanford GSB / MIT Sloan), working paper 2025, published in Journal of Accounting Research 2026. Correlation, not a controlled test.
Industry benchmarks from Ardent Partners (AP Metrics that Matter in 2025) and a Stanford GSB / MIT Sloan field study (2025-26). These figures describe other companies, are largely self-reported, and are not Palamo client results or a guarantee of outcomes.
Assessments
Know what’s real before you scale it.
One assessment, three tracks: choose the lens — AI Ops, Finance, or both — and get a prioritized roadmap in return.
AI Ops
Strategic AI Assessment
$3,000
10 business days
Shadow-AI audit, an AI-maturity and governance-gap read, and a use-case inventory — ending in a prioritized roadmap and a governance baseline.
- Shadow-AI audit
- AI-maturity read
- Governance-gap analysis
- Prioritized roadmap
- Governance baseline
Finance
Strategic Financial Assessment
$3,500
10 business days
A finance and controls read: spend, KPIs, and process gaps first — with a plan for where AI can cut cost and risk if you want it.
- Spend & controls read
- AI-opportunity map for finance
- KPI baseline
- Agentic-finance plan
AI + Finance
Combined Strategic Assessment
$6,000
2-week engagement
Both reads in one engagement — AI program and finance function assessed together, so the roadmap and the ROI model line up from day one.
- Everything in the AI Ops + Finance assessments
- One integrated roadmap + ROI model
- A single governance baseline
The credit-back
Your assessment fee is 100% credited toward an implementation that starts within 90 days.
Whether or not you continue with us, the findings and deliverables are yours to keep.
Ready to make AI pay off safely?
Start with a Strategic Assessment: a prioritized roadmap, a governance baseline, and a clear read on what's real vs. theater.