The Two-Ledger Model: Transaction-Grain Cost Accounting for Multi-Agent AI Systems Across Clouds, Models, and Systems of Record

arXiv:2611.06989v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Enterprises run business transactions through multi-agent AI systems spanning clouds, large language models (LLMs), orchestration harnesses, and systems of record. Finance receives AI cost only at settlement grain, aggregated by SKU and charge period. The business question (what did this order, claim, or case cost in AI?) cannot be answered from billing data, because providers never see enterprise transaction boundaries. The FinOps Open Cost and Usage Specification (FOCUS) gives billing data one schema across providers but remains settlement-grain even as it adds AI token and requester attribution.