Actions

Tell it what to do next.

When a bill checks out, send it straight to your system. When it doesn't, it waits for you — and the moment you've fixed it, it carries on by itself. You set this up once, in plain language, and then stop thinking about it.

The shape of it

Three lines. That's the whole idea.

Every rule you set up reads the same way: when this happens, only if it looks like that, then do this. If you can say it out loud, you can set it up.

When A document adds up
Only if It's an invoice and Total is over 5,000
Then Lay it out for your system then Drop it on your server

Set up as many of these as you like. They don't interfere with each other.

No boxes and arrows to draw.

You fill in a short form. Pick when it should run, add any conditions, then list what should happen — in the order you want it to happen. Move a step up or down with a button.

It won't let you save something broken, either. Leave a step half-finished and it says so on the spot, in words — “this step is missing where to send it” — rather than letting you find out at two in the morning when a bill quietly went nowhere.

When

Two things can set a rule going.

The same two things that can happen to any document here. Pick one, or both — one rule can happily handle both paths.

It adds up

When a document passes on its own

Everything checked out and nobody needed to look at it. This is the one you'll use most — it's the whole point. The document is ready the moment it's read, so whatever you asked for happens straight away.

Runs immediately
It doesn't

When a document needs you

Something didn't add up, or there wasn't enough on the page to check it against. You might want a copy filed anyway, or you might want the rule to sit and wait for you to sort it out first. Both are fine.

Can wait for you first

Nothing runs on a timer, and nothing goes hunting for work. A rule only ever moves because a document actually reached one of these two points — so there's no schedule to get wrong, and nothing happens twice.

Only if

Narrow it down, if you want to.

Leave this empty and the rule runs on everything. Or add conditions, and it only runs when they all hold true at once.

By what it is

Type

Send invoices one way and purchase orders another. Or set up a rule that only ever touches bank statements.

  • Match a type exactly, or say “anything that isn't this”
  • Match part of a name, if you've got a few that are near enough the same
  • Capitals and stray spaces never trip it up

By how it went

Outcome

Whether the document added up or got flagged. Handy when one rule covers both paths but you want them to end up in different places.

  • Route the clean ones straight through
  • Send the flagged ones somewhere you'll see them

By how big it is

Amount

Over a number, under a number, or exactly a number. The obvious use: treat the big ones differently from the small ones.

  • Anything over $5,000 goes to a person, not a system
  • It reads the money properly — $1,234.56, 1.234,56 and NZD 1234.56 are all just numbers to it

And if a condition ever doesn't make sense — you renamed something, or a document simply hasn't got that field — the rule doesn't run. It doesn't guess and it doesn't fire anyway. The same instinct as everything else here: when in doubt, do nothing rather than something wrong.

The bit that matters

It'll wait as long as it takes.

This is the part people don't expect. A rule that hits a document needing your attention doesn't fail, and it doesn't give up. It stops, exactly where it is, and waits for you.

Friday, 4:50pm — a bill arrives

It's read, and the sums are done. The lines don't quite make the subtotal, so it's flagged for you. Your rule starts running.

Friday, 4:51pm — it stops and waits

The rule gets as far as “this one needs a person” and parks there. Nothing is sent. Nothing is half-sent. It simply holds its place.

It can sit here for days, and nothing is ticking. A parked rule isn't waiting on anything — it's just a note that says “carry on from here.”

Monday, 9:15am — you fix it

You open it, see the page beside the numbers with the problem already pointed out, correct the line and save. That's your whole involvement.

Monday, 9:15am — it carries on by itself

The moment you save, the rule picks up from exactly where it stopped and finishes the job — lays the document out and sends it on. You don't press anything. You don't remember to come back to it.

And it resumes from that step, not from the beginning. Nothing that already happened happens twice.

One rule, both paths. You don't build one thing for the good days and another for the awkward ones.

Then

Where it ends up.

A document gets laid out the way the receiving system wants it, and then it gets delivered. You set up the places it can go once, and use them from any rule.

Straight into your system

Sent straight to your system the moment it's ready. If it needs to know the message really came from us, it can check the signature we put on every one.

Dropped in a folder

Onto your own server, over a secure connection, named however you like. The workhorse — most finance systems will happily pick a file up out of a folder.

Emailed to you

Attached to a message, to whoever needs it. For the people in the loop who don't have a system for it to go into — they just want the file.

The clever bit

One rule. Every kind of document. Each in its own shape.

You'd think you'd need a separate rule for invoices, another for credit notes, another for statements — because each one comes out in a different layout.

You don't. Say “lay it out for the system it's going to” and it works out the right layout for each document as it goes, based on what that document actually is. One rule covers the lot.

And if it can't find the right layout for something? It stops. It will not squeeze a credit note into an invoice's shape and hope nobody notices.

InvoicesCredit notesStatementsPurchase orders
One rule, running this morning All sent
What arrivedWent out as
Parts invoiceInvoice layout
Credit noteCredit layout
Bank statementStatement layout
Repair orderRepair layout
You set this up once. It didn't need telling which was which.
When something goes wrong

Your server being down isn't your problem to remember.

Things fail. A server reboots, a connection drops, a password expires. What matters is what happens next — and what you're told about it afterwards.

It tries again

Up to five times, waiting a little longer between each go rather than hammering a machine that's already having a bad day. Most outages sort themselves out well inside that.

Only the failed step retries

If the file was laid out fine and only the sending failed, it doesn't go back and redo the laying out. It picks up at the step that actually broke.

Every attempt is written down

What ran, when, what it produced, and the actual reason it failed — kept against the document, not lost in a log somewhere. So “what happened to that bill?” has an answer.

And a rule that's genuinely stuck stays stuck loudly, rather than being marked done. Nothing here quietly decides a failure was close enough.

Kept safe

It's holding the keys to your systems. Here's how it treats them.

The moment you let something deliver files to your server, it's holding a password. That's worth being fussy about.

We can't show you your own password back
Because it isn't kept in a form anyone can read. You can replace it or remove it; nobody — including us — can look at it. All you'll ever see on screen is that one is set.
It won't hand your password to a stranger
Before it logs in anywhere, it checks the machine it's talking to is genuinely yours — and if it can't be sure, it hangs up before sending a thing. That's the exact moment most systems get robbed.
Changing a rule doesn't disturb one mid-way
Edit a rule while a document is parked waiting for you, and that one finishes the way it started. Your Monday morning fix can't be derailed by a change someone made on the Friday.
A rule can only ever touch its own client
Checked when you set it up, and checked again every single time it runs. One client's rule cannot reach another client's documents or another client's server. Not by accident, and not on purpose.
It'll only send to places you own
If a rule gets pointed somewhere it has no business sending files — by mistake, or by someone hoping — it refuses to send. Your account can't be turned into a way of reaching somewhere else.
Nothing runs until you say so
A new rule sits switched off until you turn it on. You build it, look at it, and decide — nothing starts running because you were halfway through setting it up.
Someone who can only look, can only look
Give a person the ability to review documents without the ability to change where your data gets sent. It isn't a setting you hope they respect — they simply can't.
There's a record of who changed what
Every rule created, edited or deleted, and every password set — with a name and a time against it. Because “when did this start going to the wrong folder?” is a question that gets asked eventually.

More on how your data's looked after

Tell us where it needs to end up.

Most of this is a five-minute conversation. Tell us what system you're feeding and what you'd want to happen when something doesn't add up, and we'll show you the rule that does it.