Autopilot for agencies: fast, with a person where it counts

Autopilot works in three lanes. It does what follows from something a person already agreed. It prepares what needs judgment, so a person finishes it in a click. Everything else, from pricing to approvals between two people to the relationship with the client, stays with people.

What it can do by itself

• Follow up on estimates waiting for an answer. After a week with no answer, or close to its end date, one short note goes in the sender's name with the link to accept it. Only for estimates a person emailed, once per version.
• Remind clients to accept deliverables. Two days before a delivered deliverable is taken as accepted, the client gets a note with the link to accept it or say what isn't right.
• Prepare retainer invoices. When a retainer's period is ready to bill at its contracted amount, the invoice is prepared as a draft. Someone in Finance posts and sends it from Today in one click. The first invoice on a campaign is always a person's.
• Approve bills that match an approved purchase order. Every line against an order of that vendor's, within the tolerance. The order's approval stands for the bill's. Never when the vendor's bank details changed lately.
• Nudge people about last week's time. Anyone who logged less than half their hours gets a short email with a link to their week.

1. 1

   Choose what it may do

   Each starts as Suggest: it's on Today for a person to click. Set the ones you trust to Do it.

   SettingsAutopilot
2. 2

   Set the limit

   It never prepares an invoice or approves a bill worth more than Most it applies, prepares or approves by itself.

3. 3

   Switch Autopilot on

   Letting it do more by itself asks for your two-step code.

The human touch, built in

• Emails to clients wait until 9 a.m. in your time zone (Settings → General). The morning run queues them, and the morning brief lists them with a Stop link. On Today they show Goes at 9:00, with Stop and Review and send now.
• Stopped stays stopped. A step someone stopped is a person's from then on: it stays on Today, and Autopilot leaves it alone.
• Clients who only hear from people. Switch on Only people contact them on a client's details. Autopilot never emails them on its own; their reminders and follow-ups wait on Today.
• Read it before it goes. A follow-up or a reminder you send from Today opens the email as it would go. Add a note in your own words if you like.
• It earns trust. When people keep sending one kind of suggestion exactly as drafted (eight of the last ten, the latest three included), Today offers an admin to hand that kind over.

What it prepares for a person

• A team plan for a campaign just won: each line's budgeted hours spread over its weeks, with whoever knows the client or has the most room. Change anything, then Book them in one go.
• The month-end billing run: in the last days of a month and the first of the next, Today offers it. Open Billing run on Billing, tick the campaigns, and prepare one invoice for each, with an account of the work if you like.
• The weekly scope check: with AI on, each campaign with time logged that week is read against what was agreed. Anything that looks out of scope is on Today, ready to draft as a change order.
• Each client's monthly update: in the first week of a month, for every client with work the month before. It opens drafted from the records, for the account lead to edit and send.
• A brief by email: forward a client's brief or RFP to your Briefs address (Settings → Integrations). It becomes an estimate drafted from it, for the client the sender is from. From free mail, or an address nobody knows, you choose the client.