"Connect: get your data flowing"

What Connect is

Connect is where your business's data starts flowing into Verinode. It is not a filing cabinet and it does not replace the tools you already run: your accounting software, your job management system, your inbox. Verinode is an independent data trust and AI Co-COO that reads what is already sitting in those tools and in your inbox, and turns it into the benchmarks, margin views, and decisions the rest of the platform runs on. Connect is the one place that shows what is flowing in, what is ready to turn on, and how to add anything that is not there yet. You decide what to connect and how; Verinode never sells what you send it to carriers.

Where to find it

Open Connect from the sidebar at iq.verinode.ai/connect. The page title, "Connect," is sticky at the top as you scroll. If your onboarding checklist is not finished, a pill sits next to the title reading "Resume onboarding · X/Y" (X of Y steps done); once every step is complete, the same pill reads "Review onboarding." Tapping it opens the onboarding tracker as an overlay without leaving the page.

The hero: documents in, flowing, ready

At the top of the page is a large glass panel with two halves.

Left half, the headline number. A large figure counts every document Verinode has captured for your account so far: emails forwarded in, files uploaded, photos snapped, voice notes recorded. Next to it, in a colored pill, is the same page's live read on your sources:

• "N flowing · M ready", where flowing is the number of sources actively sending data in right now (a connected inbox, QuickBooks, a calendar, a tool with Flow turned on), and ready is the number of sources set up to connect but not yet turned on.
• The pill's color moves with how much is flowing: it reads in Deere Green once three or more sources are live, in Hard Hat Yellow once at least one is live, and in copper while nothing is flowing yet.

Under the number, the line "Set it up once. It comes in on its own." is the whole idea of Connect in one sentence: this is a one-time setup, not a recurring chore.

Right half, the fastest way in. This is your personal forwarding address, the quickest single thing you can do on this page. If it's already been generated, you'll see it as a line of text with a Copy button beside it (it reads Copied for a moment after you click). If it has not been set up yet, you'll instead see a Set up email forwarding button. Either way, a "Walk me through email setup →" link underneath opens the guided email setup card. See forwarding documents for exactly what happens once you start forwarding.

Earn Intelligence Units strip

Directly under the hero, a thin row may appear reading "Earn Intelligence Units" with a running total like "+250 IU" on the right. It only shows up while you still have bonus Intelligence Units left to bank, and disappears entirely once there is nothing left to earn. Tapping it opens the full onboarding tracker.

The line underneath states where you stand: "X of Y setup steps done." followed by either "Bank bonus Intelligence Units as you go. They fund IQ's work for you." (while you're still inside the earning window) or "Finish setting up to bank bonus Intelligence Units that fund IQ's work for you." (once the window has closed and only the one-time completion bonus is left).

Inside the tracker itself:

• Finish setting up is a one-time +500 IU bonus for completing onboarding. It has no time limit and stays earnable until you bank it.
• Each data section (Vendors, Margin, Jobs, and the rest) can bank its own +50 IU once you land 3 qualifying documents in that section, but only while you are within your first 90 days on the platform. A progress bar under each section in progress shows documents landed out of 3 needed.
• Once the 90-day window closes, any section bonus you did not bank is gone. The one-time completion bonus is not affected.

Intelligence Units are not a metering gimmick: they fund IQ's work for you, the AI Co-COO reading your documents and running your benchmarks. Getting set up early simply buys you more of that runway sooner.

Searching your sources

Below the hero is a single search box: "Search your tools." Typing filters every list on the page at once, live, no need to press enter.

The three tabs

Connect organizes everything into three tabs, so the page is never one long scroll. The first tab you land on depends on whether you already have any tools in your stack: Your tools if you do, Add a tool if you don't yet.

Your tools

Everything you have connected or added to your stack: accounting software, job management tools, project/field tools, or a live QuickBooks connection. The tab's pill shows a count of how many. Live sources (already flowing, connected, or with Flow turned on) sort to the top.

Each row shows the tool's logo, its name, a line under the name (either what it feeds Verinode, or, once you've turned Flow on, a status like "Flow on · Monthly · you", naming the cadence and who owns the pull), and a pill button on the right:

• A green Flowing, Connected, or Flow on pill means the source is live, no action needed.
• A solid copper Connect or Set up Flow pill is the call to action for a source you have added but not turned on yet.
• An outlined Add a source or Browse pill covers everything else.

Tapping anywhere on a row is the same as tapping its button:

• QuickBooks opens the QuickBooks authorization popup directly.
• A tool with Set up Flow opens that tool's Flow setup card, where you either forward its output to your address, schedule an export, or set a guided manual pull with reminders. See Flow for how Flow works for tools without a direct connection.
• An already-connected integration (like a live QuickBooks connection) opens the Integrations manage card, where you review or disconnect it.

If the search box is empty and you have no tools yet, this tab reads: "No tools yet. Open Add a tool to bring in the ones your office runs." If you have tools but your search matches none of them, it reads "No tools match that search."

Add a tool

Everything you can add to your stack, laid out top to bottom:

• Recommended. A short featured shelf of the highest-value tools you don't have yet, one per category gap (so Verinode never recommends a second accounting tool if you already have one). Each recommendation shows the tool's logo, name, a plain one-line reason it's worth adding, a Direct tag when it connects via a live API instead of a guided Flow, and an Add button.
• Direct connections. Featured one-tap integrations: Gmail, Microsoft 365, Google Calendar, Outlook Calendar, and Verinode Notetaker. As of this writing all five show a Coming soon pill and tapping any of them opens the Integrations card early; they'll flip to a live Connect button as each ships.
• All tools. The full catalog, grouped under Estimating, Job management, Accounting, Project / field, and Other, minus anything already recommended above or already in your stack. A note above the list explains: "Tools you add show under Vendors too, since you pay for them. That feeds your vendor-spend benchmark." Each row has an Add button; tapping it saves the tool to your stack immediately (the button reads Adding… while it saves) and it then appears under Your tools, ready to set up.
• Not listed? A free-text field, "Other tools, separated with commas," for anything not in the catalog, with a Save button that stays disabled until you've actually changed the text.

If your search matches nothing in the catalog, it reads "No catalog tools match that search." If you've added every tool in the catalog, it reads "You've added every tool in the catalog."

Other sources

The non-tool channels: your inbox, a shared folder, and direct upload. These are the general-purpose ways data reaches Verinode that aren't tied to a specific piece of software:

• Your inbox, once connected, reads "The job story, carrier threads, approvals" and is marked live; before that, it reads "Connect once, years of the job story flow in."
• Connect a shared folder ("Drop files into one scoped folder. Google Drive or SharePoint") opens an explainer card on how a scoped folder works.
• Upload a file ("Drag in a P&L, an export, a report") opens the direct upload flow.

If your search matches none of them, it reads "No sources match that search." If you haven't connected any yet, it reads "Your inbox and shared folders show up here."

Arriving here from elsewhere in the app

If a suggested next step elsewhere in Verinode points you at a specific data gap (for example, a decision that needs your accounting connected to reason about margin), the link lands you here with the exact source that fills that gap already scrolled into view and briefly ringed in copper, so you land on the thing to fix, not the top of a generic page. If nothing in your stack maps cleanly to that gap, the ring lands on the forwarding address instead, since forwarding a document is always the universal way in.

How Connect and Flow relate to the rest of the platform

Every document that reaches Verinode through any of these paths, forwarded email, a live integration, a Flow export, an upload, a photo, goes through the same extraction and normalization pipeline before it appears anywhere else in the app: Vendors, Margin, Benchmarks, and the Feed all read from what Connect brings in. Getting a source flowing here is what makes the rest of the platform's numbers real instead of empty.

1. 1Copy your forwarding address from the hero, or tap Set up email forwarding, and forward one real invoice or carrier email to it.
2. 2Open Add a tool and add every piece of software your office actually runs, accounting, job management, estimating, whatever it is. Each one either connects directly or gets a guided Flow.
3. 3For a tool without a direct connection, tap Set up Flow and choose auto-forward, a scheduled export, or a guided manual pull with reminders.
4. 4Check Your tools to confirm each source shows a green Flowing, Connected, or Flow on pill.
5. 5If you're still inside your first 90 days, keep an eye on the Earn Intelligence Units strip so you don't leave section bonuses on the table.

Related reading

• Connecting your data: the Connect and Flow model in more depth, for tools without a direct connection.
• Forwarding documents: exactly what happens to a forwarded invoice or email.
• Understanding your margin: how Margin uses what Connect brings in.
• Benchmarks overview: how your connected data becomes a peer benchmark.
• Clients and carriers: how vendor, client, and carrier records get built from your sources.
• The Feed: where the decisions built on your connected data show up.