Home › Inside the build

Look inside a system we built.

Three of ours, opened up — every step, every check, and the point where each one stops and asks a person, generated from the workflow files themselves. Then three walkthroughs of how they behave when something is wrong.

Inbox to Books Tally

50 steps   55 connections   6 stages

  1. ArrivesAn invoice lands in the accounts inbox. Your reference tabs are read once, and anything already seen is dropped before a cent of processing is spent.9 steps
  2. ReadThe document is turned into a fixed set of fields. Scanned paper takes a second route through vision. The total is copied exactly as printed, never recomputed.9 steps
  3. Checked in codeArithmetic, not opinion. Four checks a model cannot talk its way past.4 steps
  4. DecidedPass and it becomes a draft bill. Fail and it becomes a logged exception with the reason attached.6 steps
  5. RecordedThe mail is labelled, the invoice is marked seen so it cannot be processed twice, and the run is written to your metrics.4 steps
  6. Waits for youNothing reaches your accounting system until a person says yes. The request goes to your phone and the run holds for 48 hours.18 steps

Speed to Lead Reed

48 steps   53 connections   7 stages

  1. ArrivesAn enquiry arrives from your form or your site. Your rules and routing tables are read at the start of the run, not baked into the steps.7 steps
  2. ScreenedDuplicates and junk are stopped here, before anything is spent enriching a lead that was never real.6 steps
  3. EnrichedPublic company and person data is pulled in so the score is based on more than what the sender chose to type. A failed lookup lowers the score; it never stops the lead.3 steps
  4. ScoredThe model scores it and your own rules table scores it. Your table is the one that decides.3 steps
  5. FiledContact and deal created or updated in your CRM, and the lead written to your sheet. No one retypes anything.8 steps
  6. Waits for youA reply is drafted, and it stops. Nothing reaches a prospect until you approve it from your phone.14 steps
  7. RoutedHot leads raise someone. Cold ones are answered and filed without taking a minute of your team's time.7 steps

Approval Router the gate

16 steps   15 connections   3 stages

  1. Your reply arrivesYour yes or no comes back from your phone and is read.4 steps
  2. CheckedIs this a live decision, or a stale one for a run that already timed out? A late yes must not release work you have stopped thinking about.7 steps
  3. ReleasedThe waiting run is released, the record is marked, and the buttons are removed so the same decision cannot be made twice.5 steps

Step and connection counts are read straight out of the workflow files. Positions are ours — n8n draws these across seven thousand pixels of canvas, so the steps are re-placed into their stages to be readable. Same steps, same connections. Configuration, credentials and endpoints are never published.

If any of this is your week, read on

—

Someone opens a PDF invoice and types it into the accounting system. Again.

Four minutes each. Three hundred a month. And the one you paid twice last quarter is still the expensive part.

—

An enquiry arrives at 9pm on a Friday and gets answered Monday afternoon.

By then a competitor has replied, quoted, and booked the call.

—

You already know which job is repetitive. It stays manual because nobody has a spare week to fix it.

That is the normal reason. It is not a failure of discipline.

Neither workflow below removes a person from the decision. Both remove the typing, the checking and the waiting, and stop at the point where judgment actually matters.

Walkthrough 01Inbox to Books

An invoice arrives

Pick either invoice and step through what happens. The second has a total that does not match its own line items — the sort of thing found three weeks later, if at all.

  1. 1ArrivesA supplier invoice lands in the accounts inbox as a PDF attachment. Nothing is typed by anyone.
  2. 2ReadThe document is read into a fixed set of fields. The model is instructed to copy what is printed and never to compute or correct a total.
  3. 3Checked in codeSubtotal plus tax against the total. Line items against the subtotal. Supplier known. Purchase order matched within your tolerance. Not a duplicate.
  4. 4DecidedEvery check passed, so it becomes a draft bill and you are asked to approve it.

Draft bill ready

Supplier
Example Office Supply Co.
Invoice
INV-2026-1001
Amount
USD 34,624.95
PO
PO-5001 — exact match
  • arithmetic checks out
  • supplier on file
  • not a duplicate

Approvewaiting on a person

Nothing reaches the accounting system until you tap Approve.

Sample data — illustration, not a live system

Walkthrough 02Speed to Lead

An enquiry arrives

The same pattern applied to inbound leads. The score comes from a rules table you edit in a spreadsheet, not from the model’s opinion.

  1. 1ArrivesAn enquiry comes in from your website form at 9:14pm on a Friday.
  2. 2ScreenedDisposable address, spam patterns and duplicates are rejected before anything is spent on the lead.
  3. 3ScoredCompany size, budget, timeline, seniority and service fit — each worth points you set in a spreadsheet. The model also scores it; where the two disagree materially, your table wins and a person is flagged.
  4. 4AnsweredFiled in the CRM and replied to in under a minute, with the booking link.

Hot lead — 100/100

Name
Jane Doe
Company
Example Foods Ltd
Needs
invoice processing, 400/month
Replied
in 41 seconds
  • budget stated
  • timeline under 90 days
  • decision maker

Your rep gets the score, three reasons, and a Claim button, not just another notification.

Sample data — illustration, not a live system

Walkthrough 03Reception

Someone messages the front desk

Four messages, one evening, one inbox. Watch them sorted, then step through any one of them. The two it refuses to answer are the reason this is worth having — anyone can show you the one that went well.

  1. 19:40WhatsApp

    Hi — can we push Thursday’s review to next week? Same time works.

    BookedMoved to Tuesday 10:00am. Confirmed with her, partner told.

  2. 20:15Website chat

    what do I need to bring to the first meeting?

    AnsweredAnswered from your own intake checklist, with a link to it.

  3. 20:48Email

    What would you charge for a matter like this, and could you start Monday?

    Held for youAsks a price and a start date. Acknowledged, reply drafted, nothing sent.

  4. 21:02Text message

    hi is it still on?

    Asked, not guessedThree meetings could match. Asked which one rather than picking.

4 messages. 2 handled without you. 2 waiting — each with the reason it stopped.

Sample data — illustration, not a live system

What it checked, message by message

  1. 1ArrivesA client messages on WhatsApp at 7:40pm. She wants to move Thursday’s review to the following week.
  2. 2ReadWho is writing, which matter it concerns, and what she is asking for.
  3. 3Checked in codeShe is a client on file. The meeting exists. The new slot is free, it falls inside your booking window, and the partner she asks for is the one on that matter.
  4. 4DecidedMoved, confirmed to her, calendar updated, partner told. Rescheduling an existing meeting is on the short list of things you said it may do on its own.

Moved and confirmed

From
a client on file
Asked
move Thursday 4:00pm
Moved to
Tuesday 10:00am
Confirmed
in 34 seconds
  • client recognised
  • slot free
  • inside your booking rules

Moving a meeting commits no money and no scope, which is why it is on the allowed list. You decide what goes on that list, and you can take this off it.

Sample data — illustration, not a live system

What else this shape of system handles

Same skeleton every time. Something arrives, rules you control decide, and a person approves anything that moves money or reaches a customer.

01

Document processing

Invoices, receipts, statements and forms read into your accounting or matter system as drafts. Arithmetic and duplicates checked in code before anyone looks.

02

Enquiry response

Every inbound lead enriched, scored against your rules, filed in your CRM, and answered, including at 9pm on a Friday.

03

Intake and onboarding

Document collection, conflict checks, file naming, folder creation and welcome sequences chained behind one approval.

04

Report assembly

Recurring reports built from your spreadsheets and platforms, formatted to your template, written in your tone, reviewed before they ship.

05

Email triage

Inbound mail classified into review, action or archive with extracted next steps. Sensitive matters escalate to a human, never auto-replied.

06

Document review

Contracts checked against your playbook, deviations flagged and summarised. Your deal team still reviews, after the four hours of reading is gone.

A person approves anything that moves money or reaches a customer.

Not as a setting that can be switched off by accident, but as how the workflow is built. Where the model and the arithmetic disagree, the arithmetic wins and the document goes to a human. An approval left unanswered is treated as a refusal, never as consent.

The model reads and drafts. Scores, totals, eligibility and identity are ordinary code you can read, and rules you can edit in a spreadsheet without calling us.

Bring us the task that eats your week

If your team does it by hand, it can be built.

You do not need to know how. Tell us what happens today — which apps, and what somebody is retyping — and we will work out the rest.

Tell us what happens today

Cookies

Accepting turns on our AI chat assistant and basic analytics. Decline and neither loads. See the Cookie Policy.