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How a Growth-Stage Technology Company Built Data Entry That Learns from Each Day's Corrections

Operations1
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Five-Step AI Workflow with Human Oversight

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Estimates are directional and based on stated assumptions. All names, organizations, and identifying details have been anonymized in accordance with our confidentiality agreements.

The Transformation

How a Growth-Stage Technology Company Built Data Entry That Learns from Each Day's Corrections

Before
A person used to open every attachment and decide what it was.
A person used to type every field off every page.
A person used to re-key every checked record into the ERP.
After
everything that arrived, named and readied, with the unreadable held
every page read, every field filled or left honestly blank
every record checked, twelve doubtful fields waiting on your read
every cleared record posted, with the target's own confirmation on it
every document accounted for, and two rule changes waiting on you
Executive Summary

Every document that reaches operations, from the moment it arrives to the moment its record sits confirmed in the ERP or the CRM. The agents sort, read, enter, check and post; a person sees only the fields the agents doubted and the rules that would change how tomorrow's documents get read. Five stations, run as a loop: the corrections station 5 counts today change how station 2 reads and station 1 holds tomorrow.

What Was Broken

A person used to open every attachment and decide what it was
A person used to type every field off every page
The real cost
A person used to re-key every checked record into the ERP.

What We Built

Five stations and 10 subagents. Each subagent carries its own tasks and its own refusal.

A4
Document Sweep
Collect every document off the shared mailbox, the upload folder and the scanner tray
A4
Page Prep
Straighten and sharpen each scanned page before it is read
A4
Page Reader
Read every page end to end: printed text, tables, stamps and handwriting
A3
Field Filler
Fill each field of the record from the words on the pages
A3
Rule Check
Check every total against the document's own line items
A2
Review Prep
Queue every low-scored field with the page image beside the value read
A3
Field Match
Match each field of the record to the field the ERP or the CRM calls it
A4
Post Runner
Post each matched record and wait for the target's own confirmation
A4
Trail Keeper
Check every document that arrived today against where it ended
A2
Rule Proposal
Propose the reading or checking rule that would have stopped each repeated correction

How It Runs

1

Document Intake

Nobody is asked anything here

Agents collect every document off every route, name what each one is from its own pages, merge the ones that arrived twice, and hold anything that cannot be read or trusted. Nothing waits on a person here. A held file is never guessed at and never deleted; it waits, named, until somebody frees it.

2

Data Entry

Nobody is asked anything here

Agents read every page, tables and handwriting included, fill each field of the record with a confidence score on it, and leave honestly blank any field the pages never state. Nothing waits on a person here. A blank field with a reason beats an invented value that survives into the ERP.

3

Record Checking

A person answers here

Agents run every record through its checks: totals against line items, required fields, the match against the order. What passes moves on; what the agents doubted waits here for a person, with its page marked. This is where a person works. Everything else exists so that twelve fields, not two hundred documents, reach this screen.

4

System Posting

Nobody is asked anything here

Agents match each cleared record onto the fields the ERP or the CRM actually has, post it, and write the target's own confirmation number back onto the record. A record the target has no place for is held, not forced. Nothing waits on a person here. A record is posted when the target system says so, never when the export script finishes.

5

Daily Close

A person answers here

Agents check every document that arrived today against where it ended, keep the trail behind each one, and propose the reading and checking rules that would have stopped today's corrections. A person accepts or rejects each rule. A person decides here. How a document gets read and what counts as a passing check is not something an agent changes quietly.

Where a Person Decides

Step 3, Record Checking. Read the 12 queued fields, each page marked where its value came from. Say which Northwind order the unnumbered invoice belongs to, or that none does. no doubted value passes unread.
Step 5, Daily Close. Accept or reject the two proposed rules. Decide what happens to the password-locked file, it is 3 days old. the rules are yours to accept.

Operating Model

This changes how work flows through the team.

Role
Responsibility
Record Checking owner
Read the 12 queued fields, each page marked where its value came from. Say which Northwind order the unnumbered invoice belongs to, or that none does. no doubted value passes unread.
Daily Close owner
Accept or reject the two proposed rules. Decide what happens to the password-locked file, it is 3 days old. the rules are yours to accept.
Document Intake, when it goes wrong
Look here only if a supplier says they sent something that never appeared.
Data Entry, when it goes wrong
Look here only if a figure in the system does not match the page it quotes.
System Posting, when it goes wrong
Look here only if a record in the ERP disagrees with the pages behind it.

What Transfers, What Must Be True

What transfers
A person is in the loop wherever a doubted value would enter a system of record, or a rule would change how the agents read tomorrow. Two stations refuse to proceed on their own, Record Checking and Daily Close, and those are the two a person carries. Everywhere else the agents sort, read, enter and post, and reach you only when a value is yours to read or a rule is yours to accept.
Record Checking stops for a person, and no doubted value passes unread.
Daily Close stops for a person, and the rules are yours to accept.
Every subagent says what it will not do. 10 of them do.
What must be true in your environment
The agent can read the systems your records already live in. This one reads 19.
Somebody owns Record Checking and has time for it.
Somebody owns Daily Close and has time for it.

Failure Modes

What breaks this pattern:

✗ The file nobody could open vanishes

When nothing holds a locked or unreadable file, the agent skips it and moves on. The invoice inside was never recorded, so nobody knows to ask where it went.

✗ Invented values survive into the ERP

When nothing refuses to fill a field the pages do not state, the agent fills it with its best guess. The guess posts to the ERP and nobody can tell it from a value a person typed.

✗ Posted means the script finished

When nobody waits for the target system to confirm, the export script's clean exit becomes the proof. A record can be marked posted, missing from the ERP, and closed everywhere anyone would look.

✗ Documents that end the day nowhere

When nothing flags a document that is neither posted nor held, it can end the day in no queue and on no report. The gap surfaces weeks later as a payment nobody made.

Directional Outcomes

What the agent counts, and the station that counts it.

These counts are the tallies from one monitored run of the agents. They are not monthly or annual totals.

Documents sorted
Counted at Document Intake
21,400
Filed to the wrong supplier
Counted at Document Intake
0
Files it held for a person
Counted at Document Intake
61
Fields entered
Counted at Data Entry
214,000
Values invented off an unreadable page
Counted at Data Entry
0
Fields it left for a person
Counted at Data Entry
380
Records posted
Counted at System Posting
19,800
Posted twice, or lost between systems
Counted at System Posting
0
Records it held on their fields
Counted at System Posting
44
Our measurement policy: We do not publish precise ROI without baseline methodology. Every figure above carries its basis.

What Runs Where

Every step names the subagent that does the work, the record it writes, the thing that raises a question for a person, and what it is allowed to touch. This is drawn from the source, not from a diagram somebody kept in sync by hand.

1Document Intake
subagentdoc-arrivals
writesdocs/arrivals/<doc-id>.json
raiseshold-unreadable-file
may touchdocs/arrivals/**, docs/held/**, the mailbox and upload folder read-only
2Data Entry
subagentread-and-fill
writesdocs/records/<doc-id>.json
raisesfield-below-confidence
may touchdocs/records/**, docs/arrivals/** read-only
3Record Checking
GATE
subagentcheck-and-queue
writesdocs/checked/<doc-id>.json, review/queue/<doc-id>.json
raisesawait-your-read
may touchdocs/checked/**, review/**, everything else read-only
4System Posting
subagentmap-and-post
writesexport/posted/<doc-id>.json
raiseshold-unmapped-field
may touchexport/**, docs/checked/** read-only
5Daily Close
GATE
subagentclose-and-learn
writesrules/proposed/<rule-id>.json, reports/docs-<date>.json
raisesaccept-rule-change
may touchrules/proposed/**, reports/**, the day's records read-only

Stack

Every system this agent reads or writes.

System
Read at
Stations
the CRM
System Posting
1 of 5
the ERP
System Posting
1 of 5
the correction log
Daily Close
1 of 5
the day's document records
Daily Close
1 of 5
the export log
System Posting
1 of 5
the field maps
System Posting
1 of 5
the filled records
Record Checking
1 of 5
the price and order history
Data Entry
1 of 5
the purchase order history
Record Checking
1 of 5
the readied documents
Data Entry
1 of 5
the reading and checking rules
Daily Close
1 of 5
the record schemas
Data Entry
1 of 5
the reporting dashboard
Daily Close
1 of 5
the review queue
Record Checking
1 of 5
the scanner output
Document Intake
1 of 5
the shared documents mailbox
Document Intake
1 of 5
the supplier master list
Document Intake
2 of 5
the supplier's past documents
Record Checking
1 of 5
the upload folder
Document Intake
1 of 5
Next Step

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