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Lead-to-Cash

From first contact to cash

AI agents log the inquiries that come in through your website and by email, prepare the quote and follow the invoice until it’s paid. The end customer confirms their own request, and the operator, the person on your team who runs the instance, approves whatever commits the business.

What the sales cycle covers

The cycle starts when someone shows interest in your services, through your website assistant, by email or through a form. It ends when the invoice is paid. In between come qualifying the inquiry, the quote, follow-ups, the end customer’s go-ahead, the invoice and payment tracking. It suits businesses that sell on quotes, in services, construction or custom manufacturing.

The examples below take place at Fenêtres Clairval, a fictional 25-person door and window company in Montérégie that gets its requests through its website and by email. Sophie, in sales, is the operator. She receives the agents’ questions, approves their work and decides what goes out. The first example follows a request sent one evening through the website form, which the agents handle without her in the usual case. The second follows Daniel, a renovation contractor, from his quote request for the windows of a triplex until his deposit comes in.

Who does what

A request sent one evening through your website form

Nadia fills in the contact form on the Fenêtres Clairval website on a Tuesday at 9:47 p.m. The form starts the intake agent, which qualifies the request and records it. At 9:48 p.m., Nadia gets an email with a link to book a call. Sophie, the operator, steps in only when a request goes over the threshold the company set or falls outside its territory.

No operator step in the usual case

  1. Step 1 of 5: Nadia fills in the form at 9:47 p.m.. Who acts: Nadia, homeowner in Saint-Bruno, End customer
  2. Step 2 of 5: The form starts the agent through a signed webhook. Who acts: Your website form, External system
  3. Step 3 of 5: The agent qualifies the request and records it. Who acts: Agents
    • Exception. Over threshold or out of territory: question for Sophie. Who acts: Sophie, sales, Operator
  4. Step 4 of 5: The sending function emails Nadia. Who acts: Agents
  5. Step 5 of 5: Nadia gets the link to book a call. Who acts: Nadia, homeowner in Saint-Bruno, End customer
Nadia, Sophie and the company Fenêtres Clairval are fictional. The acknowledgment goes out through a sending function set up with you at installation, without approval, because the company set it up that way for a message that commits to no price or date.

  • Nadia, homeowner in Saint-Bruno, End customer

    Outside the mark,Writes in and confirms their own request

    Nadia wants to replace the twelve windows in her house. One Tuesday evening, she describes her project in the contact form on the website. She then gets an email with a link to book a call, which ends her part.

    • I’d like to replace the 12 windows in my house.
    • I’m booking a call from the email I got.

  • Your website form, External system

    Outside the mark,Sends an event

    The contact form on your website passes every submission to the instance through a signed webhook. The instance then starts the intake agent, at any hour, without waiting for someone to open the inbox.

    • Signed webhook
    • Tuesday, 9:47 p.m.

  • Agents

    Below the line,Works

    The intake agent checks that the request fits your services, your territory and the threshold you set, then records it in the Requests collection. The sending function, code set up at installation, sends the acknowledgment with no token cost.

    • Intake agent
    • Sending function

  • Sophie, sales, Operator

    Above the line,Decides

    In the usual case, the only place Sophie sees Nadia’s request is the summary the agent sends her every Monday. When a request goes over the threshold or falls outside the territory, the agent puts its question to her by email.

    • Reads the Monday summary
    • Settles the exceptions

  • Belowdecks team

    Behind the scenes,Sets up and monitors

    During setup, we connect the form to the instance and set the threshold, the territory, the acknowledgment text and the sending function with you. We then monitor the instance, without answering your requests on your behalf.

    • Connects the form
    • Sets up the sending function
    • Monitors

Demo

Two requests from the website form, to move forward one step at a time

The first tab shows the usual case, which the intake agent handles without anyone on your team. The second shows a request over the threshold the company set: the agent stops and puts its question to Sophie, who answers from her email. Each step’s button moves the example on to the next one.

Who acts in this example

  • End customer Outside the mark: writes in and confirms their own request
  • Operator Above the line: decides
  • Agents Below the line: works
  • Belowdecks team Behind the scenes: sets up and monitors

Nadia writes at 9:47 p.m., and the agent replies at 9:48 p.m. without waiting for Sophie

Fenêtres Clairval replaces doors and windows in Montérégie. Nadia, a homeowner in Saint-Bruno, fills in the contact form one Tuesday evening. Sophie, the operator, will see this request in the Monday summary.

Belowdecks · Usual case

Example

The company’s website

Nadia, homeowner in Saint-Bruno, End customer End customer Now
Nadia, homeowner in Saint-Bruno, End customer

Nadia writes here, on the company’s website.

Message ready to send: Hello, I’d like to replace the 12 windows in our bungalow in Saint-Bruno, built in 1985. Ideally before winter. You can reply by email.

Below the line

Agents Agents
Agents

The agents work here, below the line: they prepare, compare and draft.

Step 1 of 6 Nadia, homeowner in Saint-Bruno, End customer The company’s website

Nadia, Olivier, Sophie and the company Fenêtres Clairval are fictional. Emails to end customers go out through a sending function set up with you at installation. The acknowledgment goes out without approval because the company set it up that way for this low-risk message.

Step by step

A quote request, from website to payment

For each step: what triggers it, who acts (Daniel, one of the agents, Sophie or a function) and what gets recorded.

Legend

End customer
Someone outside the company: customer, supplier or candidate
Operator
A person on your team confirms, answers or decides
Agent
An AI agent on your instance does the work
Function
Fixed code, no model cost

  1. Step 1 of 8: Daniel describes his project and confirms his request

    Trigger: Your website assistant

    Who acts: End customer

    Daniel describes his project in your website assistant. The front-desk agent answers with the information you gave it, asks for what’s missing (window type, quantity, deadline) and sums up the request on a card. The assistant is set up so visitors confirm their own request. Daniel confirms it, which ends his part, and the assistant tells him when he’ll hear back.

    Recorded or delivered: Record added to the Requests collection

  2. Step 2 of 8: Qualifying the request

    Trigger: New record in the collection

    Who acts: Agent

    The new record puts the intake agent to work. It checks that the request fits your services, territory and threshold, looks for earlier messages from Daniel and classifies the request using your criteria. Sophie gets a notice by email, because the request calls for a quote. Requests sent by email or through the website form land in the same collection.

    Recorded or delivered: Request classified, Sophie notified

  3. Step 3 of 8: Preparing the quote

    Trigger: Qualified request

    Who acts: Agent

    The quoting agent prepares the quote from your price list and past quotes, kept in a collection, and saves it to the project files. If a measurement or product choice is missing, it asks Sophie and resumes once she has answered.

    Recorded or delivered: Quote ready

  4. Step 4 of 8: Sophie approves the quote

    Trigger: Agent question, by email or in the instance

    Who acts: Operator

    Sophie gets the question by email and also finds it in the instance: “Request received from Daniel, renovation contractor, to replace the windows of a triplex. The quote is ready. Can it be sent?” She opens the quote, then answers “Yes” or “No, I’ll edit it”, from the email link, without logging in, or in the instance.

    Recorded or delivered: Quote approved

  5. Step 5 of 8: Sophie approves the cover email

    Trigger: Second agent question

    Who acts: Operator

    The agent proposes the text of the email that goes with the quote. Sophie answers “Send” or types her correction in the field provided. The email then goes out through the sending function or mail connection set up with you during installation. Without one, Sophie sends it from her own mailbox.

    Recorded or delivered: Quote sent to Daniel

  6. Step 6 of 8: Following up on unanswered quotes

    Trigger: Every morning

    Who acts: Agent

    If Daniel hasn’t replied within the time you set, the follow-up agent drafts a follow-up in his language. It takes the same path as the quote, and Sophie approves the text before it goes out.

    Recorded or delivered: Follow-up approved by Sophie

  7. Step 7 of 8: Daniel accepts the quote

    Trigger: Email from Daniel

    Who acts: End customer

    Daniel replies by email that he accepts. The quoting agent reads his reply, finds the record and prepares the deposit invoice, which Sophie reviews and issues. If your accounting software is connected through its API or an MCP server, the invoice is created there as a draft; otherwise it goes to the project files.

    Recorded or delivered: Deposit invoice issued by Sophie

  8. Step 8 of 8: Payment tracking

    Trigger: Every night

    Who acts: Function

    A function, code that runs with no token cost, matches the payments recorded in your accounting software against the open invoices in the collection. Daniel’s file closes when his deposit comes in. An overdue invoice goes to the follow-up agent, which prepares a reminder for Sophie to approve.

    Recorded or delivered: File closed once paid

What you see

What stays on record in your instance

Every step leaves a trace your team can look up in its own space, within the rights of its group.

One record per request

End customer, need, current step, quote and invoice sit on a single record in the Requests collection. Your team looks it up in the team space, where records can be sorted and searched.

A verdict for every job

The agent ends every run with a verdict: Delivered, Partial or Blocked. The log shows what was done, with which files, and what it cost.

The questions inbox

Agents’ questions wait for the operator in one place, with their answer options. The operator replies from the instance or straight from the email, without logging in.

Monthly report and Monday insights

On the 1st of the month, an email gives each agent’s run count, verdicts and cost. Every Monday, the week’s insights (repeated failures, timeouts) and the proposed fixes arrive in the operator’s conversation, on cards they confirm.

Who decides what in the sales cycle

Daniel, the end customer, confirms only the card that sums up his own request, and that ends his part. Prices, discounts and quote terms are decided by Sophie, the operator. Agents prepare the quote, the follow-ups and the invoice. In this cycle as set up here, only the acknowledgment of a request sent through the form, and its reminder, go out without Sophie’s approval, because the company set it up that way for messages that commit to no price or date. Contracts are signed and payments collected in your usual tools.

By default, an anonymous visitor’s card goes to the operator by email instead, and the choice between the two is made during setup. The assistant answers only with the information you gave it, and its instructions forbid it from promising a price, a date or availability that isn’t in that information. Its answers follow the visitor’s language.

The Belowdecks team sets up the assistant, the agents, the sending function and the connections to your software during installation, then monitors the instance, without making decisions on Sophie’s behalf.

Common questions about the sales cycle

Where are my customers’ requests stored?

In the collections of your dedicated instance, a server reserved for your business. To do their work, agents send the text of requests to the AI model provider, Anthropic, through your own account. Notices for your team go out by email, and technical error reports reach the Belowdecks team. A request goes to another tool only if you decide it should.

Under the assistant’s conversation, a notice you write tells visitors that an AI processes their messages, who keeps them and for how long.

Do we have to replace our CRM?

You keep your software. Your CRM or accounting software connects through its API or an MCP server, configured during setup. It can also report its own events by webhook, and each new request can be passed to it the same way. Without those connections, requests stay in your instance’s collections and your team works with them in its own space.

What does the agent do when it isn’t sure?

It stops and puts its question to the operator, with answer options when it can: a missing measurement, a product outside the catalogue, a customer asking for a discount. The operator answers from the instance or from the email, without logging in, and the agent picks up where it left off. On your website, an assistant that doesn’t know an answer tells the visitor so and offers a callback.

How long does it take to set up this cycle?

It depends on where your requests come from, which software needs connecting and how many steps go to agents. The diagnostic answers that question for your business: it sets the step to start with and what needs connecting. The Belowdecks team then sets it up with you and monitors the instance. A cycle can start with a single step, such as the website assistant and the requests collection, then grow from there.

Let’s look at your sales cycle

The diagnostic finds the steps in your cycle that suit agents and the one to start with.

Request a diagnosticSee the five cycles