Processes
Five business cycles, from first contact to financial statements
Each cycle groups steps your company already carries out. Your end customers, suppliers and candidates write to you as usual, the agents on your instance take on part of the work, and the operator confirms anything binding.
The cycles
What the agents do in each cycle
Open a cycle to see its steps one by one: what starts them, what the agent does, where the operator confirms or answers and what gets recorded.
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Lead-to-Cash
From first contact to cash
The end customer writes to your website assistant, fills in a form or sends an email. Agents qualify the request, prepare the quote and track the invoice until it is paid, and the operator decides what goes out.
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Order-to-Cash
From order to cash
The end customer orders by email or through your online store, connected by webhook. Agents prepare the confirmation, track delivery and invoicing, then handle after-sales requests.
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Procure-to-Pay
From purchase need to supplier payment
The supplier sends its invoice by email. Agents prepare purchase orders and check each invoice against its order; a discrepancy becomes a question for the operator before payment.
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Hire-to-Retire
From hiring to an employee’s departure
The candidate applies by email. Agents prepare job postings, summarize applications and organize onboarding and departures, and the operator, here the hiring manager, makes every decision.
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Record-to-Report
From bookkeeping entry to financial statements
Agents file documents, prepare entries from your records and bank statements, and keep the month-end checklist. The operator, here your accountant, approves every entry.
Several cycles in one instance
One instance can run several cycles at once. When two cycles work in the same project, they share its memory and its collections: the order recorded by the sales agent is read by the agent that prepares the invoice, with no re-entry.
The questions inbox gathers every agent’s questions, whatever the cycle, and the operator answers them in one place. A notification rule aimed at one agent can also send that cycle’s questions to the person in charge of it, such as your purchasing lead for Procure-to-Pay. The monthly report sums up the month, with each agent’s runs, verdicts and cost, and the number of questions handled.
A cycle starts small, with one agent, one trigger and a named operator, for example each invoice received in a mailbox. The Belowdecks team sets up that first agent with you. Once the agent has settled in, you add the next step of the same cycle, then a second cycle if the first one delivers what you expected.
Other processes
Other processes that can follow the same model
These examples are possibilities. The diagnostic checks what fits your tools and your volumes.
After-sales requests
An agent can read, sort and summarize an end customer’s email, then draft a reply for the operator to review and send. Urgent messages can be flagged to them right away.
Internal requests
A member of your team asks for equipment or access in the team space or by email. An agent can complete the request, record it in a collection and pass it on to the person who decides.
Supplier follow-ups
Every morning, an agent can spot orders past their delivery date and draft a follow-up to each supplier concerned, for the operator to approve.
Periodic reports
Every Monday or on the 1st of the month, an agent can gather data from your collections and write the report for the person who needs to read it.
Industry monitoring
An agent can read the RSS feeds you choose as articles come out, rate each one against your topics and send your team a summary every Monday.
Document filing
A document dropped in a watched folder can be read, renamed by your rules and filed, with its details recorded in a collection.
First step
Let’s choose the cycle to start with
The diagnostic starts from your actual work: the requests, orders and invoices your team handles every week. You then receive a written plan.