Setting up Flow for a tool

What Flow is

Flow is Verinode's answer to the tool in your stack that has no direct connection, the estimating platform, the job-management system, the accounting desktop edition that cannot hand data over on its own. For a tool like that, Flow turns a recurring manual export into a scheduled, reminded, attributed routine: you choose how often the data comes in, who is responsible for pulling it, and how they get reminded, and Verinode holds that schedule for you.

Flow is not a live data feed. It is a commitment device. It will not read your Xactimate database or your WorkCenter install directly, that is what Connect (one-tap OAuth, covered in connecting your data) is for. Flow exists for exactly the tools Connect cannot reach yet, and it makes the human export ritual something Verinode tracks and nudges instead of something you have to remember on your own.

Where to find it

Open Connect from the sidebar at app.verinode.ai/connect. The Connect page is a tiled surface: a row of Connected sources (already flowing), a row of one-tap Connect integrations, a Flow row for tools that need a setup, a Gaps row for data categories nothing feeds yet, and an Add a tool row for anything not in your stack.

Any tool that runs on Flow shows a status line once it is set up, "Flow on · Monthly · you" (or a teammate's name in place of "you"). Tap that tile, or tap the tool under Add a tool to add it to your stack first, and its Flow card opens.

The Flow card

Each tool gets its own card: its logo, its category label in small caps (for example Accounting or Job Management), and the heading "Get [tool name] data flowing." Under that:

Set it up once. Choose how often it comes in, who pulls it, and how they're reminded. Hand it to a data contributor and their uploads are tracked to them.

A link right below reads "See what's come in from [tool name] in your Vault," and takes you straight to the Vault's Uploads tab filtered to that tool's name, so you can check what has already arrived before you change anything.

Before Flow is set up

If this tool has never had a Flow, the card shows one button, Set up Flow, with a line underneath: "One setup, then [tool name]'s data comes in on its own." Tap it to open the configuration form.

The configuration form

1. 1How often. Choose a cadence: Monthly, Quarterly, Weekly, or One time. This sets how frequently the reminder fires and when the next pull is due. Monthly is the default.
2. 2Who pulls it. Pick from a dropdown: "I'll handle it" (the default, you own the pull yourself), any existing data contributor on your team, or "+ Add a new data contributor." Picking an existing name tells you exactly what happens next: "[Name] gets the export steps by email now, plus a reminder each time it's due."
3. 3If you invite someone new, a name and work email field appear. Verinode explains the deal plainly: "This emails [name] an invite to create a free Verinode login. Once they accept, they can upload the data you ask for and it's tracked to them. They never see your numbers, benchmarks, or decisions." A note underneath adds that reminders start once they accept, and that you can manage contributors any time in Settings.
4. 4Remind by. Choose one or more channels: Email, In-app, and, for a manual-tier tool only, Calendar (an .ics file with recurring reminders you can drop into your own calendar app). If you turn on Calendar, a link appears: "Add the recurring reminders to your calendar."
5. 5Click Set up Flow to save. The button reads "Setting up…" while it saves.

Two things to know about who does the pulling:

• A data contributor is a real, separately-logged-in account, not a name on a list. That is deliberate: because the upload comes from their own login, Verinode can attribute it to them specifically, which is what lets a matching upload roll the Flow forward automatically (more on that below). A contributor account is free and has no cap.
• Inviting a new contributor is a real invite, not just adding a label. Until they accept, the assignee stays "pending," and the card reads "Flow is on, invite pending" with a yellow status dot instead of green.

If you try to save an invite with no email address, the form blocks it with "Enter the teammate's email."

Once Flow is on

With an assignment saved, the card collapses to a status line:

• A green dot and "Flow is on" once the assignee (you, or an accepted contributor) is confirmed, or a yellow dot and "Flow is on, invite pending" while a newly invited contributor has not yet accepted.
• A detail line underneath: the cadence (Monthly, Quarterly, Weekly, or One time), then who pulls it, "you pull it" or "[Name] pulls it" (with "(invited)" appended while pending), and, when a next pull is due, "next due [Weekday, Month Day]" (for example, "next due Wed, Aug 12").
• If Calendar is one of the reminder channels, a link, "Add the reminders to your calendar," stays available underneath.

Three actions sit under the status line:

• I pulled it. Click this the moment you (or the contributor) have exported and uploaded the data. It rolls the due date forward by the cadence, 7 days for weekly, 30 for monthly, 91 for quarterly, and marks the cycle in progress. A one-time Flow instead marks itself fully complete, there is no next cycle to roll to.
• Change. Reopens the configuration form, pre-filled with the current cadence, assignee, and reminder channels, so you can adjust the schedule or hand it to someone else.
• Turn off. Dismisses the Flow. It stops asking for this tool, but does not touch anything already uploaded, you can set it back up any time from the same card.

The part that runs on its own: auto-complete

The whole point of Flow is that it should not need you to remember to log in and tick a box. When a contributor (or you, if you own the Flow yourself) uploads or forwards a document, Verinode checks what kind of data it just read, jobs, margin, vendor spend, carrier data, equipment, certifications, or safety, and compares that against what this tool's export is supposed to cover. If they overlap and the upload came from the person this Flow is assigned to, the Flow rolls forward automatically. No manual click, no reminder needed for that cycle.

You will see this in your notifications as "[Tool] data came in," with the line "A contributor upload matched this Flow, so it's marked done for this cycle."

A few things worth knowing about how this matching works:

• One upload advances exactly one Flow. A single document is one tool's export. If you have several open Flows that could plausibly match the same upload (say, two job-management tools), Verinode rolls forward only the one that most needs it, the one that is overdue, or failing that, the one due soonest. The others stay open and keep reminding you, so a real gap in a second tool is never silently hidden behind a match on the first.
• The uploader has to be the person the Flow is assigned to. If a Flow is delegated to a named contributor, only their upload rolls it forward, not just anyone's. A self-owned Flow (assignee "I'll handle it") rolls forward on the operator's own upload.
• This is a best-effort convenience layer. It never blocks or delays the underlying document ingest, and it never overrides your ability to click I pulled it yourself at any time.

The export steps (collapsed once Flow is on)

Below the Flow status, a section headed "How to pull [tool name] data" holds the actual click-by-click export instructions, the fallback for whoever is doing the pull by hand. It starts open the first time you look at a tool (before any Flow is set up) and collapses once Flow is on, since at that point the schedule and reminders are doing the reminding, not the raw steps. Click Show / Hide to toggle it any time.

Each guide inside is grouped by the kind of data it covers, for example Vendors & Spend, Jobs & Claims, Margin & Job Costs, with a meta line giving the cadence, a time estimate, and the expected file format (for example, "Monthly · ~2 min · CSV"). Below that sits a numbered list of exact clicks, written for the specific screen in that tool, not a generic "export your data" instruction. Some guides carry an extra Tip line with a shortcut or a note on what to use instead if the default report is not quite right.

If a tool has no dedicated export guide in Verinode's library yet, this section does not appear at all, there is nothing to show.

Removing a tool

At the bottom of the card, "Not running [tool name] anymore?" opens a confirm step: "Remove [tool name]?" with Yes, remove and Keep it. Removing a tool takes it out of your connected stack (it drops off the Flow row and the Add-a-tool list no longer needs to offer it back), it does not erase any data already ingested from it or delete the Flow's history.

Done closes the card and returns you to the Connect overview.

Best-practice example

Say you run Xactimate for estimates and QuickBooks Desktop for the books, neither has a direct OAuth path, so both live on Flow. You set QuickBooks Desktop to Monthly, assigned to yourself, reminded by Email and Calendar. You hand Xactimate to a data contributor, Weekly, reminded by Email and In-app, since the contributor already lives in the app daily.

Two weeks in, the contributor exports the weekly Xactimate estimate summary and uploads it. Because the upload is theirs and the document reads as job data, their Xactimate Flow rolls forward on its own, no click needed, and a notification confirms it. Meanwhile your own QuickBooks Desktop Flow is untouched, it is still your reminder to handle, on your own monthly cadence, because that upload came from a different person and a different data category. Each Flow tracks its own person, its own cadence, its own next due date.

Data sources

Related articles

• Connecting your data
• Forwarding documents
• Understanding your margin
• Benchmarks overview