How we scope a build

Three planning models, before any build.

These models show how we would frame three common workflows before a build: establish a baseline, run a bounded pilot, and agree on a pass/fail gate. No company below is real, and no number below is a reported client outcome. Planning inputs must be replaced with the company's observed volumes, handling times, loaded cost, and exception rate before a recommendation is made. The fourth model fails its own gate on purpose: “automation is not always the answer” is asserted across this site, and this is what it looks like when we say it.

Freight & Logistics

Fictional · not a client

Pass gate: 18 hrs/week

Modeled baseline

Model a 50-person operator where two coordinators key invoice data and draft carrier-confirmation emails. Validate document volume and handling time before assigning any value.

Pilot to test

Test invoice extraction and review-ready confirmation drafts in shadow mode, with a coordinator approving every record and message.

Success gate

Proceed only if the pilot measures at least 18 reclaimed hours per week, preserves every source document, and routes low-confidence fields to a person.

Accounting

Fictional · not a client

Pass gate: 22 hrs/week

Modeled baseline

Model a 30-person firm where staff compare portal contents with close checklists and manually send reminder cycles. Verify client count, seasonality, and current handling time.

Pilot to test

Connect one intake source and one checklist for five consenting clients, requiring staff approval for every reminder during the pilot.

Success gate

Proceed only if staff handling falls by at least 70%, no reminder is sent after receipt, and the measured seasonal capacity reaches the stated target.

Commercial Services

Fictional · not a client

Pass gate: 70% less prep

Modeled baseline

Model a 48-person services firm where a proposal takes about two hours to assemble. Confirm the real median across enough recent bids before scoping.

Pilot to test

Draft from approved job data and past wins in the company template while a named owner reviews every factual claim before sending.

Success gate

Proceed only if median preparation time falls by 70% without unsupported claims, missing approvals, or a lower submission-completion rate.

Specialty Retail

Fictional · not a client

Fails its gate — do not build

Modeled baseline

Model an 11-person retailer where one manager spends about three hours a week reconciling supplier invoices by hand. Confirm the real weekly figure before scoping anything.

Pilot to test

None, on the planning model this site publishes. Three hours a week across 48 working weeks is 144 hours; at the $35 loaded rate that is about $5,040 of capacity, and the ROI calculator assumes roughly 60% of it is realistically automatable — about $3,000 a year against a build that starts at $5,000.

Success gate

Payback lands past 18 months, so the gate is not met and the recommendation is to not build it. Tighten the supplier list and the invoice format first, and revisit only if volume grows enough to move the arithmetic.

How we measure

Treat the target as a hypothesis until the pilot measures it.

Every project starts with a baseline and a written success gate: the hours, error path, turnaround, or approval burden the pilot is meant to move. Capacity value is not guaranteed cash savings, and an exception queue is not failure; it is how the workflow keeps judgment with a person.

Checkable, today

What we can show you today, other than models

Everything above is fictional by design. These are the things that are not — each one is published somewhere you can go and check it.

Two products running in public

MentionedOn and Intakra are live, and each publishes its dataset and methodology so the headline numbers can be checked rather than taken on trust.

Inspect the products and their evidence

The output, before you are a customer

The assessment format is published in full as fictional worked examples: observed facts separated from assumptions, ranges rather than promises, and the limitations named.

Read a complete example

PREVIOUSLY: PayPal, Cloudflare, Inscribe

Where John Arndt worked before Soxoa: twelve years deploying technology inside those companies. This is employment history, not a customer list.

A registered California company

Soxoa LLC was registered with the California Secretary of State on April 2, 2025, and operates as a service-area business out of Sacramento, CA.

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