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Workflow
Back office

Document intake, extraction, and filing

Filing looks like the cheap part of the work until you need something back. Deciding what a document is, and what it changes, is the part that can be written down, inspected and gated.

Filing looks like the cheap part of the work until you need something back

Today

Renamed and filed by hand against a convention that drifted

  • Documents arrive by email, by portal and from a scanner, in no particular order.
  • Somebody renames them and files them by hand against a naming convention that drifted years ago, so retrieval depends on knowing who filed a thing and how they were thinking that day.
  • The downstream step waits because the document is still sitting in an inbox.
  • Filing looks like the cheap part of the work right up until you need something back.
With agents

What a document is, and what it changes, gets decided and gated

  • Retrieval stops depending on who filed it.
  • The exception becomes visible instead of quietly misfiled.
  • The downstream step starts when the document lands.

How an agent runs it

Deciding what a document is, and what it changes, is the actual work. That decision can be written down, inspected and gated.

01

Capture with origin recorded

Captures documents from the intake channels you authorize and records where each one came from.
02

Classification against your types

Classifies each document against your document types rather than against a generic taxonomy.
03

Only the fields the type requires

Extracts the fields that type requires, and only those.
04

Validation against the source

Validates the extraction against the source document and marks the fields it is not confident about.
05

Human gate

Routes anything it cannot classify, and every low-confidence field, to a person for a decision rather than filing a guess.
06

Filed by your naming and retention rules

Files into the destination systems using your naming and retention rules.
07

Where it came from, where it went

Records where each document came from and where it went, so retrieval stops depending on anybody's memory.

Results

What changes when filing is a decision instead of a guess

Retrieval no longer depends on who filed it

Naming and destination are rules inside the workflow rather than habits inside a person.

The exception is visible, not misfiled

The agent routes what it cannot classify rather than choosing the nearest match and moving on.

Downstream starts when the document lands

Filing happens as part of intake rather than as a separate task somebody gets to later.

Where this fits

Workflow / Automate a Workflow

Tier 1 through the Automate a Workflow door: one workflow, end to end. Document handling is a good first candidate because the types are finite, the rules are stated once, and the gate sits where a person already expects to look. It extends toward an administrative role and then a back office that carries more of the paperwork. That is a way it could grow, not a pledge.

Automate a Workflow gives the tier context, while How It Works gives the confidence gate context.

Tier 1 / Prove
How It Works

Questions, answered

Low confidence is flagged for a person and never guessed. A filed record you can trust is the point, and the flag is what keeps the file honest about what it does not know.

AI Opportunity Audit

Sort the intake pile into types, rules and exceptions

Bring one week of the intake pile and sort it into types, rules and exceptions.