Separate retained amounts from ordinary overdue balances

Setup requirements

1. Finance supplies the opening withheld amount; no tax basis or journal treatment is inferred.

2. Commercial owner defines whether a date alone is sufficient or a release certificate is required.

3. Before any pilot, confirm an actual unresolved need and approve minimized inputs, processing environment, retention and recipients. This design does not authorize execution.

Inputs and access

1. Name

   retained_portions.csv

   Source or owner

   Finance owner

   Scope

   Synthetic invoice/portion IDs, original withholding, currency and approved basis.

   Sensitivity

   Synthetic fixture only; actual commercial, personal or location data requires minimized approved handling.

   Permission needed

   Specific owner approval before any real-data pilot. No live account access, credential handling or upload is authorized.

2. Name

   release_rules.json

   Source or owner

   Commercial owner

   Scope

   Owner-approved condition IDs, tranche rules, dates and required evidence.

   Sensitivity

   Synthetic fixture only; actual commercial, personal or location data requires minimized approved handling.

   Permission needed

   Specific owner approval before any real-data pilot. No live account access, credential handling or upload is authorized.

3. Name

   milestone_evidence.txt

   Source or owner

   Project owner

   Scope

   Synthetic completion, defect or release-certificate excerpts with authority status.

   Sensitivity

   Synthetic fixture only; actual commercial, personal or location data requires minimized approved handling.

   Permission needed

   Specific owner approval before any real-data pilot. No live account access, credential handling or upload is authorized.

4. Name

   settlements.csv

   Source or owner

   Finance owner

   Scope

   Explicit receipt/credit allocations to retained portion IDs, not bank credentials.

   Sensitivity

   Synthetic fixture only; actual commercial, personal or location data requires minimized approved handling.

   Permission needed

   Specific owner approval before any real-data pilot. No live account access, credential handling or upload is authorized.

Human approval boundaries

1. Before a pilot, the accountable owner approves exact synthetic/minimized copies, processing environment, retention and allowed recipients.

2. Owner validates identity mappings, authority, status definitions and all unresolved evidence.

3. Any source mutation, account access, upload, external communication, commercial commitment, payment or changed permission requires separate appropriate authorization.

The problem

Withheld contract portions can lose their release conditions when viewed only as invoice balances.

Suggested task

Reconcile a retained-portion register with supplied release evidence and settlements, without deciding accounting treatment or collecting money.

What you could produce

A retained-amount roll-forward and release-evidence review queue for the commercial and finance owners.

Why an agent / simpler alternative

Mixed narrative and structured evidence can benefit from assisted extraction and explanation. Identity joins, interval calculations and totals require deterministic checks. A supported native report, query or spreadsheet is preferable when it answers the owner’s question reliably.

When this work comes up

Role

Contract billing administrator

Trigger

A withheld portion approaches an owner-defined release milestone.

Human approval

Owner approves scope, rules and evidence interpretation. Any operational action requires separate appropriate authorization.

Finished output

A retained-amount roll-forward and release-evidence review queue for the commercial and finance owners.

Proposed evaluation scope — no pilot authorized

Scope

One synthetic contract, 20 invoice portions, 20 settlement allocations and 10 milestone documents.

Limit origin

Editorial evaluation bound, not a verified platform limit.

Overflow action

Stop and ask for approved partitioning; no silent truncation.

Pilot authorized

No

Evidence boundary

Firsthand reports establish stated friction or concerns only. O*NET provides duty context. Official documents establish limited native features or general primitives. This workflow, safeguards, fixtures and outputs are original proposals, not source-documented executions.

Proposed steps

1. 1

   Freeze portion identities, opening balances and the owner’s release conditions.

   Output: retention_scope.json

   Expected output: retention_scope.json

   Checkpoint: Ordinary unpaid invoices and retained portions stay separate.

   Approval gate: Owner approves exact inputs and rule scope before any pilot.

2. 2

   Extract milestone references and approval status from evidence; label claims versus authorized certification.

   Output: release_evidence.csv

   Expected output: release_evidence.csv

   Checkpoint: An expected completion date is not a completed milestone.

   Approval gate: Owner resolves ambiguous identity, authority or language before affected rows advance.

3. 3

   Allocate only explicit settlements to portion IDs and retain unallocated money separately.

   Output: settlement_allocations.csv

   Expected output: settlement_allocations.csv

   Checkpoint: No receipt is reused across retained portions.

   Approval gate: Owner resolves ambiguous identity, authority or language before affected rows advance.

4. 4

   Compute opening plus additions minus approved settlements as the remaining retained amount.

   Output: retention_rollforward.csv

   Expected output: retention_rollforward.csv

   Checkpoint: Unknown or disputed allocation remains outside approved reductions.

   Approval gate: Owner validates the calculation or decision rule before relying on its result.

5. 5

   Evaluate documentary readiness for each release tranche under owner rules, without declaring a legal entitlement.

   Output: release_review_queue.csv

   Expected output: release_review_queue.csv

   Checkpoint: Missing certificate means unresolved even if the expected date passed.

   Approval gate: Owner reviews unresolved findings; no operational action is authorized.

6. 6

   Package balances, conditions and finance/commercial questions; write no demand letter or journal.

   Output: retention_review.json

   Expected output: retention_review.json

   Checkpoint: Release, collection, write-off and accounting decisions remain human-owned.

   Approval gate: Owner accepts the separate artifact; all live actions require separate authorization.

Original starter prompt — proposed

Origin

editorial_proposal

Execution authorized

No

Text

Using only {approved_synthetic_inputs} and {owner_rules}, Reconcile a retained-portion register with supplied release evidence and settlements, without deciding accounting treatment or collecting money. Follow the six-step design. Preserve exact identities, evidence spans and uncertainty. Use inspectable calculations. Write only separate review artifacts described by the output schema. Stop for missing authority, ambiguous evidence or out-of-scope data. Do not change source records, contact anyone, access live accounts, post transactions or execute recovery actions.

Expected output schema — proposed

Primary key

1. contract_id

2. invoice_id

3. retained_portion_id

Columns

1. opening_amount

2. additions

3. settlement_ids

4. allocated_settlement

5. remaining_amount

6. currency

7. condition_id

8. milestone_evidence

9. release_readiness

10. source_spans

11. owner_decision

Record status

draft_review_only

Common provenance columns

1. input_snapshot_id

2. rule_version

3. source_document_id

4. source_row_or_span

5. reviewer_decision

Unknown value policy

Unknown values remain null, not zero. Keep raw identities and evidence. Unresolved rows do not silently enter approved totals.

Synthetic output illustration — not an executed result

Label

Synthetic authored example, not observed output

Synthetic

Yes

Executed

No

Input

Opening

400

Additions

100

Allocated payment

150

Unallocated receipt

50

Expected

Remaining retained

350

Unallocated excluded

50

Collection action

Not specified.

Limits

1. Original proposed and untested design; no source documents this complete agent workflow.

2. A reported problem is not proof of prevalence, willingness to pay, harm magnitude or current demand.

3. Historical product reports require current-installation checks; a current capability document only establishes general primitives.

4. Native reports or a deterministic script may be simpler. Exports, identity mappings, context size, privacy controls and actual tool compatibility remain untested.

5. Numerical fixtures are synthetic and have not been executed. Owner review is necessary; no time saving, cost saving or revenue outcome is asserted.

Candidate platforms — compatibility untested

1. Name

   ChatGPT Work

   Required capabilities

   1. Assess this plan’s input, operation and output requirements before selecting an account.

   Capability source urls

   1. https://learn.chatgpt.com/docs/get-started-with-work

   Selection basis

   Editorial candidate only. Shared source facts are general primitives; this plan remains unexecuted.

   Workflow compatibility

   BotCurrent has not tested this workflow.

Failure modes

1. A payment covers ordinary and retained portions without allocation.

2. Warranty end date is mistaken for release approval.

3. The same certificate is reused for an unrelated tranche.

Recovery and troubleshooting

1. Signal

   A payment covers ordinary and retained portions without allocation.

   Recovery

   Keep it unallocated until the finance owner supplies the split.

   Resume condition

   The accountable owner supplies the missing authoritative evidence or explicit rule; otherwise retain the affected result as unresolved.

2. Signal

   Warranty end date is mistaken for release approval.

   Recovery

   Require the exact owner rule and supporting authority.

   Resume condition

   The accountable owner supplies the missing authoritative evidence or explicit rule; otherwise retain the affected result as unresolved.

3. Signal

   The same certificate is reused for an unrelated tranche.

   Recovery

   Verify contract and milestone identity before marking readiness.

   Resume condition

   The accountable owner supplies the missing authoritative evidence or explicit rule; otherwise retain the affected result as unresolved.

Unexecuted validation plan

Sample setup

Opening

400

Additions

100

Allocated payment

150

Unallocated receipt

50

Acceptance checks

1. Opening retention400 plus addition100 minus explicit release payment150 leaves350.

2. If trancheA100 has approved certificate and trancheB250 lacks one, show100 documented for review and250 unresolved.

3. An unallocated receipt50 does not reduce350.

4. No balance is labeled bad debt or overdue merely because the expected release date passed.

5. Every conclusion traces to a source row or an explicitly labelled owner rule; repeated evaluation of identical frozen inputs must preserve identities and totals.

6. All original copies remain unchanged. Output is a draft review artifact, not an operational decision.

Stop conditions

1. Required identity, source coverage, calculation policy or owner authority is missing.

2. Unexpected real sensitive data is supplied without approved handling.

3. Requested work would require live access, upload, external communication, accounting posting, payment, permission change or irreversible action.

Executed

No

Fixture status

Designed specification only. No acceptance fixture or business workflow executed.

Costs and effort — unknown or hypothetical

Status

unknown_or_estimate

Currency

Not specified.

Items

1. Plan access, model usage, tool runtime and storage costs unknown.

2. Export preparation, evidence cleanup, review and correction effort unmeasured.

3. No native integration, paid service, new account or software installation assumed.

4. Case-specific effort is unknown: source extraction, identity repair, owner-rule preparation, fixture design and review may dominate model cost.

Caveat

No measured time saving, current demand, ROI or price claim. Compare the simpler remedy first.

Canadian adaptation — proposed

Verify local privacy and organizational record-handling requirements before any real-data pilot; preserve original currency, business calendars and time zones. No Canadian deployment or compliance claim.