{"schema_version":1,"experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp09_archetype_breadth150_20260804","research_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp09_light_prior_art_20260804","cell_id":"load_leveling_or_demand_smoothing__accounting_auditing","search_lanes":{"direct_problem_and_intervention":{"queries":["audit PBC request list workload client burden timeline ownership planning evidence requests","audit evidence requests staggered scheduling capacity workload smoothing","\"PBC requests\" workload audit client capacity scheduling"],"source_ids":["SRC1","SRC2"],"no_result_note":null},"synonyms_and_historical_terms":{"queries":["audit client assistance schedule prepared by client list coordination interim work","audit information request list request management timeline client burden","audit PBC planning assign owners deadlines early preparation professional firm"],"source_ids":["SRC1","SRC2"],"no_result_note":null},"products_practices_and_standards":{"queries":["audit evidence request portal recurring requests owners due dates product PBC","audit evidence request software workflow due dates recurring requests first party","PCAOB AS 2301 interim date audit procedures timing evidence"],"source_ids":["SRC2","SRC3","SRC4"],"no_result_note":null},"component_combination":{"queries":["audit evidence requests staggered due dates owner capacity reviewer capacity","PBC requests dependency tracking workload capacity urgent audit requests","audit evidence request workflow job queue approver review"],"source_ids":["SRC2","SRC3","SRC4"],"no_result_note":"No retained source described the complete combination of dependency-valid release windows, owner-and-reviewer capacity slots, urgent bypass, and secondary-peak feedback."}},"sources":[{"source_id":"SRC1","title":"Is Your Organization Audit Ready?","publisher":"BDO USA","url":"https://www.bdo.com/insights/blogs/nonprofit-standard/is-your-organization-audit-ready","source_type":"TRADE_PROFESSIONAL","claims_supported":["Audit preparation can feel overwhelming and requires adequate time to gather and organize information.","Established practice includes discussing timing and requested items with the auditor, finalizing a deliverables timeline, assigning each preparation task, and considering preparation and review before delivery.","This is advance PBC planning prior art, but it does not describe capacity-profiled release control or reserved preparation and audit-review slots."]},{"source_id":"SRC2","title":"Auditi Features: PBC Management & Client Collaboration","publisher":"Auditi","url":"https://www.auditi.com/pbc","source_type":"FIRST_PARTY_PRODUCT","claims_supported":["A commercial external-audit collaboration product provides structured PBC request lists with owners, due dates, preparers, reviewers, reminders, status tracking, roll-forward templates, and activity history.","The product identifies manual status reconstruction, follow-up, and client uncertainty as problems in evidence collection.","The opened product page does not show dependency windows, capacity-based staggered activation, protected urgent capacity, or paired service-slot allocation."]},{"source_id":"SRC3","title":"Evidence Request Workflow and Users","publisher":"ServiceNow","url":"https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/governance-risk-compliance/audit-management/evidence-request-workflow.html?contentId=LrmIp_AiD~buv7Xeng4EbA","source_type":"FIRST_PARTY_PRODUCT","claims_supported":["An audit evidence workflow can assign requests to users or groups, route submissions through approval and review, and provide pending, current, and upcoming job queues for planning team effort.","Control owners can use job queues and track time and performance for owned activities.","This is close component-level workflow prior art, although it concerns audit/GRC workflows generally and does not establish the proposed external-audit load-leveling policy."]},{"source_id":"SRC4","title":"AS 2301: The Auditor's Responses to the Risks of Material Misstatement","publisher":"Public Company Accounting Oversight Board","url":"https://pcaobus.org/oversight/standards/auditing-standards/details/AS2301","source_type":"OFFICIAL_STANDARD","claims_supported":["The auditor must design and implement responses addressing assessed risks of material misstatement.","Timing of audit procedures and use of interim evidence are governed by risk, evidence sufficiency, the period covered, and necessary later-period procedures.","Operational smoothing cannot override risk-responsive timing, professional skepticism, or the auditor's evidence obligations."]}],"problem_evidence":{"status":"PARTLY_SUPPORTED","finding":"The problem is visible at a general level: professional guidance describes audit preparation as potentially overwhelming and recommends adequate lead time, coordinated deliverable timelines, task assignment, and planned review; products address follow-up, manual status reconstruction, ownership, queues, and review routing. The retained sources do not quantify narrow post-close request peaks relative to shared-owner and reviewer capacity, demonstrate underused feasible intervals, or establish that a material request fraction is safely shiftable.","source_ids":["SRC1","SRC2","SRC3"]},"closest_prior_art":[{"name":"Advance PBC planning with a shared deliverables timeline and assigned preparers","source_ids":["SRC1"],"overlap":"Coordinates requested items and timing before the audit, assigns responsibility, and anticipates preparation and review before delivery.","remaining_difference":"It does not explicitly regulate when requests become actionable using earliest/latest dependency windows, capacity bands, urgent bypass, paired owner-reviewer slots, or peak-migration thresholds."},{"name":"External-audit PBC collaboration and request tracking","source_ids":["SRC2"],"overlap":"Centralizes requests, owners, preparers, reviewers, due dates, reminders, real-time status, recurring templates, and audit history.","remaining_difference":"The opened description manages requests after creation but does not show capacity-profiled staggered release, protected peak capacity, or guaranteed later preparation-and-review service paths."},{"name":"Evidence-request workflow with job queues and approval routing","source_ids":["SRC3"],"overlap":"Combines assigned evidence tasks, pending/current/upcoming queues, time tracking, approval, auditor review, revisions, and closure.","remaining_difference":"It provides workflow and queue visibility rather than an external-audit policy that redistributes request activation across bounded windows according to client-owner and auditor-reviewer capacity."},{"name":"Risk-responsive interim timing of audit procedures","source_ids":["SRC4"],"overlap":"Allows timing variation and interim work where appropriate, subject to risk and later-period evidence requirements.","remaining_difference":"It governs professional audit procedure timing rather than prescribing operational smoothing of PBC-request releases and paired capacity slots."}],"prior_art_disposition":"ADJACENT_PRIOR_ART","contrastive_claim_remaining":"Compared with advance PBC planning, request portals, ordinary queues, approval workflows, and interim audit procedures, the candidate claims that jointly authorized control of request actionability—using dependency-valid timing windows, capacity-profiled staggered releases, paired owner-and-reviewer slots, protected urgent capacity, and daily peak-migration feedback—will reduce maximum daily owner and reviewer load while preserving every evidence obligation and protected outcome.","contrastive_claim_falsifier":"The claim is falsified if established practice or a product already implements that complete combination, or if a one-engagement retrospective replay cannot reduce maximum owner and reviewer load without increasing latest-completion misses, urgent-work delay, unresolved shifted backlog, evidence-quality exceptions, or a comparable secondary peak.","gates":{"adequate_source_search":{"status":"PASS","rationale":"The bounded screen searched the proposal directly, PBC and older request-list terminology, professional practices, products, an official auditing standard, and combinations involving queues, ownership, review, timing, and capacity. Four opened sources span four publishers and include first-party products and an official standard.","source_ids":["SRC1","SRC2","SRC3","SRC4"]},"supported_problem":{"status":"PASS","rationale":"Coordination burden, follow-up, manual status reconstruction, assigned preparation and review, and work queues are publicly visible. Evidence for the proposal's more specific capacity-relative temporal concentration is incomplete, supporting a PARTLY_SUPPORTED finding.","source_ids":["SRC1","SRC2","SRC3"]},"distinct_testable_claim":{"status":"PASS","rationale":"A measurable distinction remains between visibility or due-date management and deliberate capacity-based control of release timing with paired service slots, urgent bypass, and feedback against secondary peaks.","source_ids":["SRC1","SRC2","SRC3","SRC4"]},"bounded_next_test":{"status":"PASS","rationale":"A read-only replay of one completed engagement is bounded: reconstruct daily estimated effort by owner and reviewer, label dependency-valid windows, apply the proposed rules, and compare peak loads, completion dates, urgent timing, backlog, and secondary peaks without changing any live audit judgment or schedule.","source_ids":["SRC2","SRC3","SRC4"]},"no_obvious_safety_or_authority_stop":{"status":"PASS","rationale":"No categorical stop applies to retrospective analysis of already-authorized records. Any live pilot must remain subordinate to engagement-partner risk and evidence judgments, client management authority, confidentiality controls, and reporting deadlines; risk-significant and invalidly early evidence must not be shifted.","source_ids":["SRC3","SRC4"]}},"screen_survival":true,"world_novelty_boundary":"This light public-web screen found adjacent planning, PBC-platform, queue-and-approval, and interim-timing practices but no retained source describing the complete proposed combination. The bounded result cannot establish world novelty, patentability, market size, expert acceptance, realized value, or the absence of undiscovered implementations."}