The same work repeats in every industry under a different name.
Reading dates out of a signed purchase agreement and reading a title block off a machining drawing are the same machine with a different vocabulary. Below is a map of both axes: what each sector repeats, and which sectors are quietly running the same thing as you.
12 sectors, 8 shapes of work
Open a sector to see what it repeats. Each of those connects outward to the shape underneath it, and that shape leads to every other industry running the same job. The lists below carry the same information and are the authoritative version of it.
- A brokerage runs on dates that were calculated by a person reading a contract, and on leads that arrive in a different shape from every portal.
- The same client name is typed into the conflicts database, the practice management system, the document management system and the ledger, and a conflict is only found later if two people spelled it the same way.
- The technician photographs the nameplate, then types the model and serial from that photo, usually somewhere with bad light and worse signal.
- Everything is finished and the return still cannot be filed, because the signature authorisation has not come back.
- Electronic eligibility answers whether a patient is covered, and then somebody opens the payer portal anyway to find out what is actually payable.
- A certificate request arrives as a sentence in an email, and answering it correctly requires deciding which endorsements the policy actually grants.
- The estimate, the project system and the accounting system each hold a cost code structure, and the mapping between them lives in a spreadsheet maintained by one person.
- The management system is authoritative for money and knows nothing about the phone call where the owner approved the repair.
- The same seven facts about a load get typed into the system, then onto the bill of lading, then onto the invoice.
- The quote was built against one revision and the drawing in the operator hand is another, which is the defect this sector is built around.
- The parser reads the resume, then somebody corrects the employment dates it merged, which is most of the time it was supposed to save.
- The account application comes back not in good order because of a missing initial, and the whole signature cycle runs again.
8 shapes of work, and everywhere they turn up
Sorted by the machine rather than by the industry. If your own row sits beside trades you have never worked in, that is the point of the section.
Reading a document and returning fields
A document arrives as a scan, a portal export or a flattened PDF, and a person retypes the parts that matter into a system that will not accept the file itself. Underneath, the work is identical in every sector that has this problem. Name the fields, read them, record how certain the model was about each one, and put a person in front of only the uncertain ones. What changes between a purchase agreement and a machining drawing is the vocabulary and the layout, never the shape of the job.
- Reading dates out of a ratified contract
- Abstracting a commercial lease into dated fields
- Filling an MLS input sheet from the listing agreement
- Turning a docket entry into a calendar
- Turning a delivered transcript into a usable set of cites
- Coding a filing fee to the matter that will repay it
- Reading a nameplate so nobody retypes it
- Reading a year of utility bills into a load calculation
- Getting statements and receipts into one shape
- Reading a Schedule K-1 into the return without retyping
- Reading an insurance card into a plan that already exists
- Loading a contracted fee schedule into the plans that use it
- Reading a certificate request and preparing the answer
- Reading a property schedule from a spreadsheet into the application
- Building a submittal register from the specification
- Reading signed field tickets into billable change work
- Reading income documents out of a rental application
- Reading a rate confirmation once instead of three times
- Checking a carrier before the load is tendered
- Reading a lumper receipt into a billable accessorial
- Opening a request to quote without retyping the title block
- Reading the quality clauses off an incoming purchase order
- Numbering every drawing characteristic for a first article report
- Filing a mill test report against the heat received
- Fixing what the parser got wrong before a person sees it
- Reading expiry dates off certificate scans into dated fields
- Reading outside statements into a planning file
Turning an arriving request into a routed record
Requests arrive through a web form, through a phone call, through a portal login and through an inbox that somebody forwards, each in a shape of its own, and the first person to retype one into the system of record effectively owns it. The machine underneath normalises every arrival into a single record, decides what kind of thing it is, attaches whatever context already exists, and routes it by a rule the business has actually agreed on. The hard part is never the software. It is writing the routing rule down.
- Turning portal leads into one shape a person can work
- Turning an after hours maintenance call into one work order
- Entering a new client once instead of four times
- Filing client email to the matter instead of the inbox
- Booking a service call without a person typing it
- Sorting a return visit into callback or new work
- Turning a portal work order into a dispatched job
- Turning a tax notice into a dated response record
- Sorting rejections that need a person from ones that do not
- Working pending cancellation notices the same way every time
- Turning a phoned in loss report into a submitted claim
- Clearing an inbound submission before a market gets blocked
- Deciding which renewal increases are worth remarketing
- Sorting bid invitations into one decided bid board
- Turning a reported problem into a routed work order
- Turning driver texts and voicemails into load status events
- Turning a rejected part into a routed nonconformance record
- Turning portal requisition alerts into one owned job order
- Turning a client text into one preserved record
Chasing an outstanding item until it is complete
Somebody holds a list of items that are missing, compares it against what has arrived, sends a reminder about the gap, and then has to remember to look again later that week. It is the least interesting work in any business and it is where the most money leaks, because the reminder that never went out is invisible. The comparison and the reminder and the remembering are all mechanical. Deciding whether what came back is acceptable is not, so that stays with a person.
- Chasing a compliance file to complete
- Chasing a referral fee through to a closing you cannot see
- Asking for the replenishment before the retainer runs to zero
- Chasing medical records until the set is complete
- Getting a deposition on the calendar of every party
- Chasing the warranty credit the distributor has not issued
- Clearing the HERS verification that holds a permit final
- Working an aging replacement proposal before it goes stale
- Turning uncategorised transactions into one question list
- Chasing the signature that is holding up a filing
- Getting a W-9 out of a vendor before the first payment
- Chasing claims that were acknowledged and then went quiet
- Following a predetermination that never came back
- Working the treatment accepted last year and never scheduled
- Collecting loss runs without a person waiting on each one
- Chasing the signed forms that have to be in the file
- Collecting lien waivers before the payment run
- Chasing an information request to an answer
- Refreshing subcontractor prequalification before the file goes stale
- Chasing retention left behind after substantial completion
- Getting an owner decision without three follow ups
- Chasing signatures and funds before keys change hands
- Working the delinquency list before it reaches court
- Getting the delivery receipt to the invoice
- Working a cargo claim through to a written answer
- Attaching a reason to every unexplained machine stop
- Chasing parts sitting at the plater or heat treater
- Working a supplier corrective action request to closure
- Keeping submission status current without a spreadsheet
- Collecting timesheets without a person asking twice
- Chasing a placement fee through the guarantee window
- Chasing an account transfer that stopped moving
- Closing the gaps in beneficiary designations on file
- Chasing proof that annual disclosures reached each client
Matching two lists that do not agree
Two systems hold overlapping records and neither agrees with the other, so somebody works a queue of unmatched rows by eye, mostly confirming matches that were obvious. Matching on an exact string is what makes these queues long, because the same entity is spelled four ways across four systems. The useful version matches on several weaker signals at once, clears what is unambiguous, and hands over only the genuinely ambiguous rows with the evidence for each candidate attached.
- Rebuilding an annual operating expense reconciliation from the lease
- Reconciling a broker trust account three ways every month
- Matching a closed transaction back to the lead that produced it
- Collapsing two overlapping MLS feeds into one property list
- Widening a conflicts search past exact spelling
- Rebuilding a billable day from the trail the systems already keep
- Assembling the monthly three way trust reconciliation packet
- Matching refrigerant bought against refrigerant put into equipment
- Finding the parts the truck says it still has
- Joining one client across the ledger and the tax file
- Clearing the duplicate rows a feed backfill leaves behind
- Splitting a processor payout back into sales and fees
- Keeping a recall list from going stale
- Posting a remittance that does not balance to the ledger
- Clearing the unmatched download queue
- Checking an issued policy against what was actually bound
- Reconciling direct bill commission statements against the policy records
- Checking a workers compensation audit before the insured pays it
- Reconciling cost codes between the estimate and the ledger
- Matching supplier invoices to signed delivery tickets
- Matching vendor invoices against work orders and owner charges
- Reconciling a master utility bill against unit allocations
- Matching a carrier invoice against the rate confirmation
- Comparing who was booked against who actually hauled
- Finding jobs running to a superseded drawing revision
- Closing the gap between estimated hours and actual hours
- Collapsing one person into a single candidate record
- Matching approved portal hours against what you billed
- Matching billing groups against the custodian account list
- Working the queue of positions that will not reconcile
Writing one fact into every system that needs it
A single fact changes, and it now belongs in the system of record, the platform the counterparty can see, the accounting file and whatever spreadsheet somebody built because the other three were too slow to ask. Typed four times, it is wrong in at least one of them within a week. The constraint is almost never the reading. It is whether each destination permits a write at all, which is a licensing question rather than an engineering one, and it has to be answered before anything is built.
- Keeping a status change from being typed four times
- Closing a matter in every system that still holds it
- Retiring old equipment from every record naming it
- Writing one client change into every system that holds it
- Writing one staffing change into every system that grants access
- Keeping an endorsement change from being typed twice
- Writing an approved change order into every system
- Posting scheduled rent steps and index adjustments
- Writing a moved dock appointment into every place it lives
- Answering where an order is without walking the floor
- Confirming an interview slot in every place it lives
- Writing agreed placement terms into every billing system
- Writing one client change into every system that holds it
Assembling a package from records at one moment
At a fixed moment, a month end or a shipment or the close of a meeting, somebody gathers records that already exist into a bundle and sends it out. Nothing here is a judgment call, which is why it gets pushed to whoever has the least standing to refuse it, and why it goes out late. Collecting the records and putting them into one document is mechanical work. Approving what is about to leave the building is the one step worth a person.
- Building a commission disbursement authorization at closing
- Drafting a seller net sheet from a payoff statement
- Building a demand package the adjuster can actually open
- Filling a mandatory form set from the matter record
- Drafting the disbursement statement behind a settlement payment
- Getting the job photos onto the invoice before it sends
- Assembling the rebate submission before the program window closes
- Building the month end binder from the ledger
- Preparing state sales tax filings from ledger detail
- Assembling the radiographs and narrative a claim needs
- Putting a records release together from four separate systems
- Billing a medical plan for an oral sleep appliance
- Building the renewal submission packet ahead of the expiration date
- Assembling the monthly payment application and its backup
- Building the closeout package final payment depends on
- Pulling photo evidence together for a backcharge argument
- Assembling the monthly owner statement run
- Building the record behind a declined rental application
- Assembling the deposit disposition after a move out
- Answering estoppel and lender questionnaire requests for an association
- Building the detention file before the charge is billed
- Assembling a cargo claim file from what the load already holds
- Assembling a certificate package at shipment
- Building the pre adverse action packet from the report
- Assembling the first day paperwork for a new contractor
- Turning a meeting into records and tasks
- Building and sending the quarterly client report pack
- Assembling what an adviser needs before a review meeting
Catching a rejection before the other side does
A submission goes out to a clerk, a carrier, a custodian or a payer, and comes back days later over something small enough to have been caught in a second. The rules that governed the rejection were published the whole time, and the delay costs far more than the error did. Encoding those rules and running them before the thing is sent is the entire pattern, and what it is worth is measured in round trips that never happened.
- Counting the clock that public marketing starts on a listing
- Checking for a signed buyer agreement before a tour is confirmed
- Catching a filing rejection before the clerk does
- Catching the invoice lines an e-billing gate will reject
- Checking that a technician may legally take the call
- Filing a backflow test report the purveyor will accept
- Checking a trial balance against the tax grouping before import
- Catching the rejects a return will come back with
- Verifying benefits without opening six portals
- Stopping the claim that will come back for one field
- Checking a commercial submission before the underwriter sees it
- Preparing a surplus lines filing so the stamping office takes it
- Catching certified payroll errors before the agency portal does
- Checking a bid package against the instructions to bidders
- Checking an eviction filing before the clerk rejects it
- Checking a freight invoice against the billing rules of the customer
- Confirming who the carrier payment is actually owed to
- Checking a production part approval package before submitting
- Testing a shipment notice before the customer scans it
- Checking a submittal against the rules of the client
- Catching a paperwork rejection before the custodian does
- Checking a fee file before the custodian posts it
Noticing that something has quietly stopped
Nothing announces itself. A feed stops delivering, a registration window closes, a figure the plan depends on quietly ages past the point where it means anything, and the visits somebody already paid for are never booked. None of it raises an error, because from the software point of view nothing happened. Work that fails by absence is invisible to everyone except the person who eventually gets the bill, and it is the cheapest kind to catch, because a system that knows what should have arrived by now can simply say so.
- Noticing that an agent licence has quietly lapsed
- Watching an MLS feed for the day it goes quiet
- Catching a lapse date nobody put on a calendar
- Closing the registration window before it closes you
- Scheduling the visits a membership already promised
- Closing the permit that never got its final inspection
- Noticing a broken bank feed the day it breaks
- Noticing a transmitted return that never came back accepted
- Spotting a payroll filing that quietly did not happen
- Noticing that remittance files from one payer stopped arriving
- Catching a licence or attestation before it goes inactive
- Finding visits that happened and never became a claim
- Noticing a producer licence or appointment before it expires
- Catching the renewal that the carrier never sent
- Noticing a subcontractor policy that expired mid job
- Calendaring notice windows from the first furnishing date
- Catching leases that drift into month to month
- Finding work orders that quietly stopped moving
- Watching vendor insurance and tax records for expiry
- Noticing when a required resident policy quietly stops
- Noticing a tender that was never actually accepted
- Finding loads where tracking quietly never connected
- Finding delivered loads that were never invoiced at all
- Catching a carrier whose insurance or authority has lapsed
- Catching gauges that pass their calibration due date
- Watching outside processor approvals expire before the order ships
- Billing the shipments that never became an invoice
- Noticing a screening order that quietly went nowhere
- Catching work authorisation that expires mid assignment
- Working assignment end dates before the contractor is gone
- Keeping the evidence file for an automated screening tool
- Keeping outside assets from silently going stale
- Noticing that a custodian data file never arrived
- Watching for a required distribution that never happened
- Catching the day the archive stopped capturing someone
If your industry is not here, the work usually still is. The four shapes on what we build cover most of it, and the review exists to find out which of them applies to you before anybody commits to a build.