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Order-to-Cash

From order to cash

AI agents enter the orders that arrive by email or through your online store, check prices, prepare deliveries and invoices, then track receivables and after-sales requests. The operator, a person on your team, settles discrepancies and approves whatever goes to the end customer.

What the order cycle covers

The cycle starts when an existing customer places an order. It ends when the invoice is paid and after-sales requests are settled. It covers order entry, price and credit checks, order confirmation, delivery preparation, invoicing, receivables follow-up and after-sales service: returns, missing parts, questions about a delivery.

In the fictional example below, a 15-person packaging distributor in Laval receives orders by email, with a PDF purchase order attached, and through its online store. Chantal, a buyer at a commercial bakery, plays the end customer. She orders boxes and bags every week. Martin, in sales administration, is the operator. He receives the agents’ questions, approves their work and decides what goes out. The next two sections show an order placed in the online store and handled with no one stepping in when everything is in stock. The step-by-step flow then follows an order sent by email, from the inbox to a return request.

Who does what

An order placed in the online store

The store sends the order to the instance, then agents and functions handle it all the way to the confirmation Chantal receives. When everything is in stock, the order goes all the way through with no one on the team stepping in. Martin, the operator, gets a question only if an item is short.

No operator step in the usual case

  1. Step 1 of 5: The store sends the order by webhook. Who acts: Online store, External system
  2. Step 2 of 5: The agent checks stock and records the order. Who acts: Agents
    • Exception. Only if an item is short: a question to Martin. Who acts: Martin, sales administration, Operator
  3. Step 3 of 5: Functions produce the invoice and the confirmation. Who acts: Agents
  4. Step 4 of 5: Chantal asks where her parcel is. Who acts: Chantal, bakery buyer, End customer
  5. Step 5 of 5: The after-sales agent answers from the record. Who acts: Agents
Chantal, Martin and the distributor are fictional. The confirmation goes out through a sending function put in place at installation, without review, because the company set it up that way for this routine message. Every run keeps its log and its verdict.

  • Chantal, bakery buyer, End customer

    Outside the mark,Writes in and confirms their own request

    Chantal buys the boxes and bags for a commercial bakery. She orders in the distributor’s online store, gets the confirmation by email, then asks the website assistant where her delivery is.

    • Order placed online
    • Where’s my parcel?

  • Online store, External system

    Outside the mark,Sends an event

    The distributor’s online store sends each new order to the instance by webhook. The call carries a signature computed with a key shared by the store and the instance, and the instance refuses any call whose signature doesn’t match.

    • Signed webhook
    • Order lines

  • Agents

    Below the line,Works

    The order agent checks stock, records the order and calls the invoice, packing slip and sending functions, which run with no model tokens. The after-sales agent answers customers on the website from the order records.

    • Order agent
    • After-sales agent

  • Martin, sales administration, Operator

    Above the line,Decides

    When an item is short, the order agent sends Martin a question by email, with three choices. Martin answers from that email, without logging in to the instance.

    • Offer a delay
    • Split the order
    • Cancel the line

  • Belowdecks team

    Behind the scenes,Sets up and monitors

    We connect the store to the instance with the signed webhook, write the invoice, packing slip and sending functions with you, then monitor the runs. We never make decisions on your company’s behalf.

    • Connects the store
    • Writes the functions with you
    • Monitors

Demo

Order 10482, when everything is in stock and when an item is short

Two examples to move forward one step at a time. In the first, the order goes from the store to the confirmation with no human step. In the second, the order agent stops to ask Martin a question, and he answers from his email.

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

All items are in stock, so the order reaches Chantal with no one stepping in

Chantal orders boxes and bags in the online store. The order agent and the functions handle the order, then the after-sales agent answers her question on the website.

Belowdecks · Usual case

Example

The company’s website

Chantal, bakery buyer, End customer End customer
Chantal, bakery buyer, End customer

Chantal writes here, on the company’s website.

Below the line

Agents Agents Now

  1. Tuesday, 10:42 a.m. Chantal confirms order 10482 in the online store. The store sends it to the instance by signed webhook, which starts the order agent.

Step 1 of 8 Tuesday, 10:42 a.m. The company’s website

The people and the company are fictional. Emails to Chantal go out through a sending function set up at installation, without review, because the company chose that for these routine messages. Every run keeps its log and its verdict.

Step by step

An order, from inbox to payment

For each step: what triggers it, who acts (Chantal, one of the agents, Martin 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: Chantal sends her order

    Trigger: Email received or online store webhook

    Who acts: End customer

    Chantal sends her order by email, with her purchase order as a PDF. The email puts the order agent to work. It opens the attached purchase order, picks out the products, quantities and requested date, then creates the record in the Orders collection. Orders placed in the online store arrive by signed webhook, already structured, as in the example above.

    Recorded or delivered: Record added to the Orders collection

  2. Step 2 of 8: Price and credit check

    Trigger: New order

    Who acts: Function

    A function compares each line with the prices agreed with the bakery and checks its credit limit, using data kept in a collection or read from your software through its API. This check is code, with no token cost, and gives the same result every time.

    Recorded or delivered: Discrepancies noted on the record

  3. Step 3 of 8: Martin settles discrepancies

    Trigger: Agent question

    Who acts: Operator

    When a price doesn’t match or the credit limit is exceeded, the order agent puts the question to Martin, with the possible choices. Martin answers from the email, without logging in, or in the instance, and the agent picks the order back up. An order without discrepancies goes straight to the next step.

    Recorded or delivered: Decision noted on the record

  4. Step 4 of 8: Confirming the order to Chantal

    Trigger: Order approved

    Who acts: Agent

    For an order received by email, the order agent drafts the confirmation, with a summary of products and quantities, in Chantal’s language, and Martin reviews it before sending it. For an order placed online, the confirmation goes out through the sending function set up at installation, without review, as the company chose for this routine message.

    Recorded or delivered: Confirmation sent to Chantal

  5. Step 5 of 8: Preparing deliveries

    Trigger: Every morning at 7 a.m.

    Who acts: Agent

    The delivery agent groups the orders to ship that day, and a function produces the picking and delivery slips. Available quantities are read from the Stock collection, or from your inventory software if it is connected through its API or an MCP server. A shortage becomes a question to Martin before shipping.

    Recorded or delivered: Delivery slips in the project files

  6. Step 6 of 8: Martin approves the invoices

    Trigger: Every evening

    Who acts: Operator

    The billing agent gathers invoices for the orders delivered that day, including those the function produced for online orders, and asks Martin a single question: create them all, or hold some back. Once he answers, the agent can create them as drafts in your accounting software, connected through its API or an MCP server, for Martin to issue from there.

    Recorded or delivered: Draft invoices in your accounting software

  7. Step 7 of 8: Receivables follow-up

    Trigger: Every Monday

    Who acts: Agent

    The receivables agent reviews overdue invoices in your accounting software and drafts a reminder for each, suited to how late it is and to the customer’s history. Martin picks the reminders to send, and a seriously overdue account is flagged to him by email.

    Recorded or delivered: Overdue list and reminder drafts

  8. Step 8 of 8: Chantal reports a damaged case

    Trigger: Email to customer service

    Who acts: End customer

    Chantal writes to customer service that a case of boxes arrived damaged. The after-sales agent reads her message, sorts it, summarizes it, links it to the original order and drafts a reply in her language. Anything urgent goes straight to Martin, who replies to Chantal from his own email.

    Recorded or delivered: Request linked to the order, draft ready

What you see

Every order’s history in one place

Your team looks up records in its own space, within the rights of its group.

One record per order

Lines, discrepancies, decisions, the invoice and after-sales requests all sit on the order’s record in the Orders collection.

The questions inbox

Price or credit discrepancies and stock shortages 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.

Repetitive work moves into functions

An agent can save the repeatable steps of a successful run as functions, such as reading purchase orders from a customer who always uses the same template. They run with no token cost. When one of them redoes the whole mission, it goes first and the agent takes over if it fails.

Verdicts and the monthly report

Every run keeps its log, and the agent closes it with a verdict: Delivered, Partial or Blocked. On the 1st of the month, an email gives each agent’s run count, verdicts and cost.

Who decides what in the order cycle

Chantal, who plays the end customer, writes through her usual channels: email and your online store. Prices, discounts, credit, refunds and what to do about a stock shortage are decided by Martin, the operator. Agents enter orders, check prices and stock, and draft messages. In this cycle as set up here, two replies reach Chantal without review: the confirmation of an order placed online, sent through the function set up at installation, and the website assistant’s answer about her delivery, taken from the order record. Other messages wait for Martin’s approval, and invoices are created as drafts for him to issue.

A return request is summarized and linked to its order. Martin accepts or declines the return, and the refund is made in your usual tools. The online store connects to the instance by signed webhook. Stock can be kept in a collection or read from your management software, and creating invoices in your accounting software requires a connection through its API or an MCP server, set up with the Belowdecks team.

Common questions about orders and receivables

Our customers order by email, each with their own purchase order format. Is that a problem?

Agents read purchase orders in different formats: an attached PDF, a spreadsheet, a list in the body of the message. The email trigger saves attachments on your instance, and the agent opens them with its tools. When a line is unreadable or ambiguous, its instructions tell it to ask the operator.

Do we have to change our accounting or management software?

You keep your software. Your accounting or management software connects through its API or an MCP server, configured during setup, and your online store can send each order by signed webhook. Agents read prices, stock and open invoices there. Without those connections, orders and invoices stay in your instance’s collections and your team enters the result in its software.

Where is our customer and order data stored?

In the collections of your dedicated instance, a server reserved for your business. To read an order or draft a reply, agents send its text to the AI model provider, Anthropic, through your own account. Notices and summaries for your team go out by email, and technical error reports reach the Belowdecks team. Nothing passes from one Belowdecks instance to another.

How long does it take to set up this cycle?

It depends on how many order channels you have, which software needs connecting and which steps go to agents. The diagnostic answers that question for your business, then the Belowdecks team sets the cycle up with you and monitors the instance. A cycle can start with a single step, such as sorting after-sales email, which only needs access to that mailbox, then extend to order entry and invoicing.

Let’s look at your orders and receivables

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

Request a diagnosticSee the five cycles