An invoice shows a different price from the purchase order. Finance sends the invoice to purchasing for a check. The buyer gave approval for the price change, but the approval is in an email. The purchase order still shows the previous price.
Before payment, an employee must find the email and compare the approval with the invoice. Which items does the approval include? Who gave the approval?
This information is part of the operational context. Without this context, employees must find and examine related documents before they continue their work.
Why the order record is not sufficient
An enterprise resource planning system, or ERP, keeps data about orders, materials, and payments. Employees use these records during their daily work.
But a price or status does not always show the cause of a change. A supplier agreement might be in an email. A quality report might be in a different system.
For the invoice, finance must know more than the approved price. The approval must also include the applicable order and items. An agreement for one order does not give approval for all orders from the supplier.
When this information is separate from the record, each department must find the necessary documents.
The cost of checks between departments
An employee starts with the invoice, opens the purchase order, and finds a price difference. The employee then sends a message to the buyer.
The buyer finds the approval email and sends a copy to finance. If the approval does not include all invoice items, another check is necessary.
During these checks, employees stop other tasks. Some checks involve a short comparison. Others include documents from different departments and messages to suppliers.
Your team might already measure the time necessary to enter an invoice. The time between departments also matters. Record the time employees use for checks and the time they wait for information.
When other work must wait
Missing context also causes problems in production. Consider a batch of materials with a quality hold. The quality department completes the test, but the system still shows the hold.
The production planner does not have the test result. Before production starts, the planner must get the result and the necessary approval.
Until then, the planner must wait or change the schedule. A schedule change also means more work for employees who prepare materials and equipment.
The missing information is small compared with the production plan. But the next step depends on an approved result. The cost includes the checks and the work necessary after a schedule change.
When reports contain errors
A report shows a task as overdue. The employee completed the task, but the system did not receive the status update.
A supervisor who uses only the report gets incorrect information. Before a decision about the task, the supervisor must compare the report with other records.
If these errors occur again, supervisors must do the same checks again. This leaves less time to find and correct problems in the work itself.
More reports do not correct missing source data. Employees must know which source contains the applicable information and who must correct the record. Otherwise, the next report will contain the same error.
What an AI agent must use
With the necessary access permissions, an AI agent reads related records and prepares information for a check. For an invoice, these sources include the purchase order, invoice, and approval email.
The agent compares the prices and order references. The output shows the differences and gives the source for each value. Finance then examines the comparison without opening each system separately.
The procedure must specify which approval is necessary before payment. If the approval is missing, the agent must send the case to the designated employee.
A previous invoice with the same price is not approval for the current invoice. The comparison must keep this difference clear.
Start with one task
Select a task where employees frequently find missing information. Use completed cases to identify the necessary documents and the employees who did each check.
Write the procedure for the task. Include the source data, approval conditions, and steps for incorrect or missing information. Specify who must correct each record.
Then measure the time necessary for the checks. Also measure how long the task waits before the next step. Compare these times after the procedure changes.
Keep the approved result with the related record. The next employee should have access to the result and its source.
Onyven addresses this work between enterprise systems. Orchestra makes related information available for employee decisions. Sonata completes specified tasks under company rules, with approval steps where necessary.
Start with one order, invoice, or quality case. Find where the necessary information is missing, and which task must wait until an employee finds the source.