A made-up marketing agency. Its answers, and what came back.
A 25-person marketing agency, mostly on monthly retainers. Projects live in a project tool, the books in QuickBooks, and billing in whoever remembers who did what.
The business is made up, and so are its answers. Everything below them is what the site gives back, unedited: the same page you'd see at the end of the questions.
Their 14 answers
- Before we start — where do you think AI could help you most?
- Writing up reports, records and paperwork
- And in your own words — which processes are the most painful or annoying right now?
- Billing every month means rebuilding who did what from calendars and chat.
- Have you already tried to fix this?
- Nothing yet
- If twice as much work landed next month, which part would break first?
- Absorbing it. Work sits unbilled, and cash arrives long after the effort.
- Where does most of your work come from?
- Mostly ongoing engagements — retainers and monthly work.
- How does delivered work become an invoice?
- It's reconstructed from memory and calendars.
- Which systems does the business run on?
- QuickBooks or another cloud accounting tool; A project tool — Asana, Monday, ClickUp, Jira or Trello; Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 / SharePoint
- Where is the cash actually sitting?
- Work delivered and not yet invoiced.
- Roughly how long is the cycle?
- 45 days from work done to cash in
- Why does delivered work sit unbilled?
- Time isn't recorded until someone chases it — biggest pain
- Can you see, at a glance, what's unbilled, in client review, or unpaid — and how old each is?
- The numbers are there, but not how old each one is.
- When someone stays on top of billing delivered work, what are they mostly doing?
- Rebuilding the same picture from the same places, every time, before anything moves.
- How much of where billing delivered work stands sits with one person?
- Mostly one person, but someone could reconstruct it.
- How often does billing delivered work go wrong in a way somebody has to fix?
- Weekly. There's usually something.
From here down is their page, so “you” means them. It opens: You told us the limit is cash and cycle time, not capacity — and the process you named is billing delivered work, at about 45 days from work done to cash in. Built from the 14 answers you gave.
About this section: First, where they thought AI would help, set against where their answers pointed; the gap is often the most useful line on the page. Then each answer that marked a problem, in the words they picked.
What stands out in your answers.
You came in thinking AI could help most with “Writing up reports, records and paperwork”. Your answers bear out document production, and also point at re-keying between systems, chasing and follow-up and no visibility of status.
A velocity constraint is rarely one thing: these usually name more than one place the cash is sitting, and they feed each other.
- Where the drag is
How does delivered work become an invoice?
It's reconstructed from memory and calendars.
Nothing moves until somebody notices it should have. The delay is not the work — it is the gap between the work finishing and anyone knowing, and that gap has no owner.
- Where the drag is
Why does delivered work sit unbilled?
Time isn't recorded until someone chases it.
The work is done and the record of it is not. Every day between the two makes the record less accurate, which is why the narrative gets harder to write the longer it waits.
- Where the drag is
When someone stays on top of billing delivered work, what are they mostly doing?
Rebuilding the same picture from the same places, every time, before anything moves.
The same inputs, the same steps, the same output, every time. Work with that shape does not get better with experience, which is a strong signal about who should be doing it.
- Worth watching
Can you see, at a glance, what's unbilled, in client review, or unpaid — and how old each is?
The numbers are there, but not how old each one is.
You can see the totals but not their age, and age is most of the story with money in flight. A balance that is all current is fine and one that is all overdue is not, and the number on its own cannot tell you which you are looking at.
- Worth watching
How much of where billing delivered work stands sits with one person?
Mostly one person, but someone could reconstruct it.
Cover exists but it is slower and less certain, which means the process quietly waits for one person even when it doesn't have to.
- Worth watching
How often does billing delivered work go wrong in a way somebody has to fix?
Weekly. There's usually something.
Weekly rework is regular enough to be a process feature rather than bad luck. It is worth knowing which step produces it.
About this section: The same map as on the industry page, now marked from their own answers. It opens on the part of the process they named.
The same answers, drawn on your process map.
Red marks the drag.
- ProspectA referral, an inbound form, or a reply to outreach
- Worth watchingWin the workEnquiry, discovery, scope, proposal, signature
- Worth watchingDo the workGather inputs, plan, produce, review, hand over
- Keep the clientRequests, check-ins, the renewal — the ongoing side of the work
- Where the drag isGet paidCollect time, check it against the SOW, invoice, chase
- ClientReceives the work and the invoice
Click a step marked with a plus to see the work inside it.
- Where the drag is
- Worth watching
About this section: The blueprints that touch that drag, ranked, each with the answer that put it there. Press “See it on your map” to watch one take over the steps it would do.
The 2 agents we would scope, in order.
Ranked by how much of the drag you described each one removes, not by what we'd most like to sell.
Billing narrative assembly
What was delivered — and the records it left behind — becomes a client-ready billing narrative, drafted from what actually happened rather than from memory.
Because you said “Time isn't recorded until someone chases it.”
Invoice follow-up and collections
Follows an invoice from the day it is sent, chases on a schedule rather than at quarter end, and escalates with the history already attached.
Because you said “It's reconstructed from memory and calendars.”
All 8 professional services blueprints, including the ones your answers didn't point to.
About this section: Where nothing in the catalog covers what they described, the page says so rather than stretching a match.
2 things your answers point at are outside what we model today.
- re-keying between systems
- changeover and cycle time
None of our blueprints covers this yet. That doesn't rule it out: it would be scoped the same way, and we'd rather look at it with you than call something nearby a match. Talk it through on a call.
Your process, not theirs.
About fifteen questions about how the work actually moves, most of them a single tap. At the end, leave your email and see your process map marked with your answers, what stands out and the agents that fit.
You'd be talking to Robert Dopart directly: the person accountable for the build, not a salesperson.
Other examples: manufacturing, distribution & logistics and hospitality & real estate.