Invoice Intake Triage (Delivery)

Invoice Intake Triage (Delivery)

1. 01

   Map every inbound document channel before routing a single bill

   List the mailboxes, shared drives, WhatsApp threads, and vendor portals where client invoices and receipts actually land. Agencies running multi-entity retainers typically find three to five intake paths, and each one needs a named owner.

2. 02

   Set a per-document value ceiling that forces human review

   Pick a threshold (many shops use $2,500 per line item) above which an operator must approve before the entry posts. Totum AI and similar intake tools can read text, voice notes, images, and PDFs, but the ceiling is what keeps a misread digit from becoming a client-facing error.

3. 03

   Normalize vendor names and chart-of-accounts codes into one lookup table

   Duplicate vendor spellings are the most common cause of reconciliation failures. Build the mapping once, then require every automated entry to resolve against it before posting.

4. 04

   Route each document to the correct entity and period

   Multi-company books fail when a March invoice posts to April. Tag entity and period at intake, not at approval, so the reconciliation step downstream has nothing to untangle.

5. 05

   Run a same-day exception queue for anything the agent cannot classify

   Target a 24-hour turnaround on exceptions. Anything older than 48 hours starts distorting the client's cash position and your own retainer billing.

6. 06

   Reconcile the automated batch against the bank feed before month close

   Woodrow-style agents handle bank reconciliation and AP/AR at volume, but the operator still signs off on the variance report. Flag any unmatched item over $500 for a second look.

7. 07

   Log every manual override with a reason code

   Override logs are the fastest way to find where the intake rules are wrong. Review the log monthly and tighten the classification rules that generated the most exceptions.