How it works

Seven rungs between a sentence and your books.

Every change, whoever or whatever asks for it, climbs the same ladder. Nothing skips a rung.

01 · Ask
02 · Build on a copy
03 · Check against your books
04 · Review
05 · Approve
06 · Publish with a proof record
07 · Undo for 30 days

The rungs

One card per rung. What happens, what you see, and what can go wrong.

Ask

What happens: You describe the change in plain language, on the web or on WhatsApp. rung1 asks up to a few clarifying questions if the request could mean two things.
What you see: Your sentence, the channel, and an estimate in rupees before anything runs.
What can go wrong, and what we do: The request is ambiguous. We ask; we don’t guess.

Illustrative

Rung 1

“Credit notes above ₹25,000 need my approval”

Question 1 of 2: who approves: the finance head or you?

Build on a copy

What happens: The agent builds the change on a throwaway copy of your site, made from a fresh snapshot. It never touches live.
What you see: What is being built, as it happens.
What can go wrong, and what we do: The build fails. Nothing happened to your books; the copy is destroyed.

Illustrative

Rung 2

Copy created from 10:58 snapshot

Workflow added · 214 test documents replayed

Check against your books

What happens: Five checks run on the copy, computed from your own ledger, stock, permissions, GST and audit-trail data.
What you see: A light for each check, and a plain-language reason for any that fail.
What can go wrong, and what we do: A check fails. The change stops and you’re told why, in rupees. Refusals cost ₹0.

Illustrative

Rung 3

Ledger ✓ · Stock ✓ · Access ✓

GST ✓ · MCA audit trail ✓

Check	The question it answers	Blocking?
Ledger	Does your trial balance still balance, and do closed periods stay closed?	Yes
Stock	Do quantities, valuation, batches and serials still reconcile?	Yes
Access	Has anyone quietly gained access they didn’t have?	Yes
Tax / GST	Do returns, e-invoices, HSN and place of supply still work?	Warns; overriding needs two people and a written reason
MCA audit trail	Is the statutory edit log intact?	Yes, and it can never be skipped

Review

What happens: rung1 prepares a review a CFO can read: what changes, what is removed, whether it can be undone, and what it costs.
What you see: Before and after for every change, in words rather than DocType diffs.
What can go wrong, and what we do: Something destructive is included. It is counted separately and needs an extra confirmation.

Illustrative

Rung 4

4 changes · 0 destructive · reversible

Cost of this run ₹18.40

Approve

What happens: A person you name says yes, with a one-time code. The person who asked can’t approve their own change.
What you see: Approve and publish, or reject with a written reason the agent learns from.
What can go wrong, and what we do: The approver is away. Nothing happens until they return. Nothing is auto-approved by default.

Illustrative

Rung 5

Waiting for Priya Raghavan · Finance head

Approve and publish · Reject with reason

Publish with a proof record

What happens: One service takes a snapshot, publishes the change and re-runs the checks on live. If a check fails on live, it restores automatically.
What you see: A proof record: who asked, what the checks said, who approved, how to undo.
What can go wrong, and what we do: A live check fails after publishing. The snapshot is restored and the record says so.

Illustrative

Rung 6

Proof record #8,414 · hash-chained

sha256:7c41e0…9b2d18

Undo for 30 days

What happens: Any published change can be undone for 30 days. The undo is built from the record, never written by AI, and it runs through the checks too.
What you see: One button, and a new proof record for the undo.
What can go wrong, and what we do: Later data depends on the change. The undo check tells you what would be affected before you confirm.

Illustrative

Rung 7

Undo this change · 29 days left

Undo checked · 5 of 5 passed

Out of scope, always

What rung1 will never do.

These are not settings. They are how rung1 is built.

Submit anything unattended
Make a payment
Post into a closed period
Amend a filed return
Change bank or supplier payment details as a side effect
Write an undo with AI
Turn on auto-approve by default

Where you can approve

Approve from where you are.

Design partners

Web

The full review, with before and after, check lights and the rupee cost.

Design partners

Request, approve, reject and a daily digest. Approval opens the review with a single-use link and a second factor.

Later · pilot Q4 2027

Phone

rung1 Voice: approve a waiting, low-risk, reversible change by phone, with a read-back.

About rung1 Voice

Illustrative · design preview

rung1 screen: WhatsApp: ask, answer, approve

Where AI is used

Eight of ten steps make no AI call.

Only the evaluate step calls a model. Everything that decides, publishes, records or undoes is deterministic.

01AskNo AI
02ClarifyNo AI
03EvaluateModel call
04Build on a copyNo AI
05CheckNo AI
06ReviewNo AI
07ApproveNo AI
08PublishNo AI
09RecordNo AI
10UndoNo AI

Hover or focus a step. Only “Evaluate” calls a model; a model may produce a write intent, never an allow.

The layer that runs the checks and writes proof records is elan1. Technical detail on elan1.ai

Demo · 3 minutes

Watch a change get refused, then undone.

Request → checks → refusal in rupees → a smaller fix → approve → a deliberate undo. Live, with a founder, on a demo site.

Book a live refusal demo Talk to us

Illustrative rung1 screen: a change stopped by the ledger check, out of balance by ₹4,250

FAQ

How the mechanism works.

Only the evaluate step, where the agent drafts a write intent. Eight of the ten steps make no AI call. A model may produce a write intent. It may never produce an allow.

A single-tenant sandbox made from a fresh snapshot of your site, used for one change and destroyed afterwards.

No. Ledger, stock, access and the MCA audit trail are blocking. GST warns, and overriding it needs two people and a written reason.

The checks run again on live. If one fails, the snapshot taken just before publishing is restored automatically, and the proof record says so.

On hosted sites, yes, for 30 days. The undo is built from the record, never written by AI, and it is checked like any other change.

Start with one process. Add the next when it holds.

10 design-partner slots for Phase 1. 90 days free, onboarding done for you, a named founder on WhatsApp.

Apply as a design partner Talk to us

Not for service firms under ₹1 crore, firms above ₹250 crore, or anyone whose CA won’t take a call.

Check

The question it answers

Blocking?

Ledger

Does your trial balance still balance, and do closed periods stay closed?

Yes

Stock

Do quantities, valuation, batches and serials still reconcile?

Yes

Access

Has anyone quietly gained access they didn’t have?

Yes

Tax / GST

Do returns, e-invoices, HSN and place of supply still work?

Warns; overriding needs two people and a written reason

MCA audit trail

Is the statutory edit log intact?

Yes, and it can never be skipped

Seven rungs between a sentence and your books.