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Business problems / Construction, field service, procurement and finance
Custom system design

Completed work and supplier credits go unclaimed

Join approvals, completion evidence, invoices and supplier credits so eligible amounts reach review, billing and reconciliation.

A situation to work through

A site variation is approved and finished, but its evidence never reaches the person preparing the next claim.

Illustrative workflow design

Unbilled work and supplier credit recovery

  1. Find eligible work
  2. Match approval and evidence
  3. Prepare claim
  4. Approve and submit
  5. Reconcile collection
Choose what happens next
What happened
An approved variation has a signed completion record but no invoice line.
What the system checked
Match scope, approval limits, completion evidence and prior billing.
Next action
Prepare the missing line and evidence pack for the authorised claim or invoice review.
What is recorded
Source documents, matched amount, prior-claim check and approval status.
Controls and integration

Match source evidence, contract or campaign terms, previous claims and credit notes. Never infer approval from a message mentioning work, or count the same amount twice.

Connect to existing systems where their APIs and permissions allow. Rules, approvals, reconciliation and recovery are agreed before any production write. AI may extract or classify; validated business rules control consequential actions.

Illustrative rules and records. This demonstration does not connect to your systems or claim a measured client result.

Evidence before promises

Agree what a better result means.

Keep identified, approved, invoiced and collected amounts separate. Deduct credits, disputes and recovery costs. Recovered cash is separate from this labour estimate.

  1. Eligible items missing from the billing or claim queue.
  2. Time from confirmed eligibility to invoice, approval and collection.
  3. Net additional cash collected against the baseline, after disputes and recovery costs.

Capture a representative baseline, including difficult cases. Compare the same work mix after release and count review, rework and upkeep. Agree a measurement period that fits your volume.

Before you build

Before applying this to your business

The decisions and evidence to settle before a production rollout.

Does preparing an invoice mean the revenue has been recovered?

No. Keep completed work, claim eligibility, invoice preparation, invoice issuance and cash receipt as separate states. An invoice may be disputed, unpaid or outside the permitted claim terms. Report cash collected separately from potential claims and administrative capacity released.

Can a supplier return automatically become a credit claim?

Match the return, original purchase, quantities, reason and supplier terms. A valid evidence pack can prepare an eligible claim or a task for the authorised team. Do not assume a return is accepted or a credit is owed until the required confirmation exists; partial credits and disputes remain explicit.

What should we bring for a first recovery workflow?

Use sanitised examples of completed but unbilled work, a relevant contract or order, and the evidence needed for approval. Agree the eligibility rule, claim owner and a finish that can be checked. Pilot a bounded set and measure accepted claims and cash receipt over an appropriate period.

Make it specific to your business

Start with one bounded piece.

Choose one revenue or credit stream. Start with a reconciled review queue; leave disputed eligibility and financial posting with an authorised approver.

How it connects · existing software, n8n and custom code

We first check what your current software already supports. Where it fits, n8n can coordinate steps alongside native integrations and custom code. You do not need to choose the technology before describing the problem.

The scope identifies data access, credentials, approvals, monitoring, failed-action recovery, hosting, licence costs and who maintains the system. Handover covers the agreed workflow definitions, code, operating notes and access. Customer-controlled infrastructure can be considered where appropriate.

n8n has cloud and self-hosted options; some team and governance features require a paid plan. The appropriate edition and responsibilities are confirmed during scoping. n8n deployment options.

Go deeper

The workflows behind this outcome.

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