Zen Paradigms
Get started

Home Features

Features

Everything on the record.

From the upload to the voice call, each capability is part of one system of record. Where a feature could be mistaken for a different product, the scope says what is included and what is not.

01

Intake

Upload invoices into the system of record

An invoice is not collected because a file was saved. It is collected because a record was opened, checked, and given a next action.

In the product

  • Upload client invoices as PDF or image. The file is stored against the customer, not in a shared drive.
  • The system of record checks the vendor, the invoice number, the totals, and the client details before the cycle starts.
  • A verified invoice opens a payment cycle and a collection channel. An invoice that fails the check waits, with the reason visible.
  • The original file remains attached, so a later question can be answered from the same screen as the balance.

How it stays controlled

  • Who may upload, who may verify, and who may release a cycle are different permissions.
  • A duplicate of an invoice already on the record is held for a person to compare, not silently added.
  • The upload, the check, and the decision are all on the audit trail.

02

Parsing

Read every line before money moves

Parsing is a check, not a convenience. The lines have to agree with the client, the purchase order, and the total before the invoice is fit to send or to pay.

In the product

  • Scan the invoice and extract supplier, customer, dates, currency, tax, and line items.
  • Compare those lines with the client record: name, tax identifier, billing address, and agreed currency.
  • Match a purchase order or a contract reference when one is expected.
  • Show the mismatches as a list a person can accept, correct, or reject. Nothing is “close enough” in silence.

How it stays controlled

  • A parsed invoice is a proposal until a permitted role confirms it.
  • Corrections are stored as corrections, with the parsed value and the confirmed value both kept.
  • If a required field is missing, the invoice cannot open a payment cycle.

04

Dashboard

The week, the book, and the chase in one view

The dashboard is a compiled view of the record. It is not a second set of numbers exported from somewhere else.

In the product

  • Collected, outstanding, and overdue, with the invoices behind each figure.
  • Payments due in the coming week, so the team can see what to ask for before it is late.
  • Defaulters: customers whose balance is overdue, with the last notice and the last outcome.
  • Counts of invoices and active pay cycles, collections by channel, and the cash-flow forecast beside them.
  • Filters by customer, entity, collector, and status, down to the invoice the figure came from.

How it stays controlled

  • A role sees the entities it is allowed to see. A group view does not grant edit rights.
  • Figures drill back to invoices. A total without a source is not shown.
  • The forecast on this screen is the collections forecast, described in its own section below.

05

Pay cycles

Issue the invoice on the day you agreed

A pay cycle is a standing instruction. You set it once in the console. Zen raises the invoice, logs it, and sends the link when the day arrives.

In the product

  • Set the customer, the amount, the currency, the cadence, the due date rule, and the branding.
  • On the cycle date, Zen generates the invoice, stores it on the system of record, and opens collection.
  • The payment link goes out with the same tags as a manually uploaded invoice.
  • Skip, pause, or amend a cycle before it issues. An issued invoice is a document, not a draft you quietly overwrite.

How it stays controlled

  • Creating or changing a cycle can require a second person, depending on the role setup.
  • An issued invoice keeps its number. A correction is a credit or a new document, recorded as such.
  • The cycle’s history shows what was scheduled, what was issued, and what was sent.

06

Recurring billing

The same amount, asked for on the same day

If a customer is billed a fixed amount every month, the work is the same every month. Zen does that work and writes it down.

In the product

  • A subscription is a pay cycle with a repeating rule: monthly, quarterly, or a custom interval.
  • Each period produces a new invoice, a log entry, and a collection message. The example of 1,000 every month is just that rule with a number and a currency on the customer.
  • Price changes apply from a date you choose. Earlier invoices are left as they were issued.
  • Failed or short payments stay visible on the subscription, and the next collection knows the open balance.

How it stays controlled

  • Ending a subscription does not delete the invoices it already issued.
  • A pause stops the next issue. It does not hide what is already outstanding.
  • Usage that varies by period can be entered before the issue date. Zen will not invent a usage figure.

07

Collections

WhatsApp, email, SMS, and phone

Customers answer on different channels. The record should not care which one they used, only that the ask and the answer are stored.

In the product

  • Send collection notices, reminders, and payment links by email, SMS, and WhatsApp.
  • Place the follow-up on a cadence: before the due date, on the day, and after it, until a person or a rule stops it.
  • Voice sits in the same cadence. The voice agent, described below, places the call and writes the outcome here.
  • A reply, a promise, a refusal, or a wrong number is an outcome on the invoice, visible to the next person who opens it.

How it stays controlled

  • Quiet hours and channel preference live on the customer. A number that has opted out of a channel is not used.
  • Templates are the wording. Free-typed demands are not part of the cadence.
  • Dispute stops the cadence. The invoice waits for a person.

08

Audit

Purchase orders, receipts, statements, and the trail

An auditor should not have to reconstruct a collection from an inbox. The pack is the invoice plus the evidence around it.

In the product

  • Attach purchase orders, contracts, delivery receipts, and bank statements to the customer or the invoice.
  • Keep the path from order, to invoice, to notice, to payment, to the entry that was synced.
  • Export a pack for a period, a customer, or a sample an auditor has selected.
  • Show who uploaded a document, who verified the invoice, who sent the link, and who approved a write-off.

How it stays controlled

  • Auditor is a read role. It can open the pack and cannot send, edit, or approve.
  • Documents are added. Replacing one keeps the earlier file and records the person who changed it.
  • The trail is append-only for actions. A deleted draft is still a fact.

09

Expenses

Receipts and expenses, scoped to the record

Expense management here is the evidence and the approval around money going out, held in the same place as money coming in. It is not a second company for travel and cards.

In the product

  • Capture a receipt by upload and attach it to a supplier, a category, and a payment.
  • Match a receipt to a bank line or an imported card charge.
  • Route the expense through the same maker-checker used for a vendor payment.
  • Include the receipt in the audit pack beside purchase orders and statements.
  • See spend and collections in one tenant, so a client’s books are not split across tools without a reason.

How it stays controlled

  • The person who submits a receipt cannot approve their own reimbursement or vendor payment.
  • A receipt without a category or an owner stays in a queue. It does not vanish into a total.
  • Categories follow the tenant’s chart, which can be aligned with the connected accounting file.

Included

  • Receipt capture, categorisation, matching, approval, and export into the audit pack.
  • The link between an expense and the accounting file you already sync.

Outside this scope

  • Corporate card issuing, travel booking, mileage, and employee stipends. Those stay in the card or HR system.
  • Zen keeps the evidence and the approval. It does not become the card programme.

10

Integrations

Check the file you already close

Accounting firms and companies already live in Tally, QuickBooks, Xero, Zoho Books, or SAP and NetSuite. Zen syncs with that file and says where the two records do not agree.

In the product

  • Connect Tally, QuickBooks, Xero, Zoho Books, and SAP or NetSuite.
  • Exchange customers, invoices, and payments. CRM, ERP, and payroll connectors carry the neighbouring facts: who the customer is, and who is on the books.
  • A variance view lists what Zen has and the accounting file does not, and the other way around.
  • Webhooks and a public API carry the same events a connector uses: invoice verified, link sent, payment received, cycle issued.

How it stays controlled

  • A sync is a comparison plus a write you have allowed. It is not permission for either system to overwrite the other in silence.
  • Failed syncs are visible. They are not retried forever without a person seeing them.
  • API credentials are per tenant. One client’s key cannot read another client’s book.

Included

  • Accounting sync, variance, webhooks, a public API, and connectors for the CRM, ERP, and payroll data that billing needs.

Outside this scope

  • Zen is not a payroll engine and not a CRM. It reads what it needs to bill and collect, and it writes back the financial result.
  • A connector does not certify that the accounting file is correct. It shows agreement and difference.

11

Access

Roles, seats, and a wall between tenants

Access is how a firm can put many clients on one product without putting them in one book, and how a company can separate the person who prepares from the person who approves.

In the product

  • Roles include preparer, collector, approver, auditor, and administrator. Names can follow your policy. The separation does not.
  • Per-seat and per-usage are the commercial frames: people who can sign in, and the volume of invoices, messages, and calls the tenant runs.
  • Multi-tenancy keeps customers, invoices, templates, and keys apart.
  • A separate deployment per client is available when a shared application is not a hard enough boundary.

How it stays controlled

  • An administrator of one tenant is not an administrator of another.
  • A dedicated deployment is a stronger wall. It is chosen per client, not assumed for everyone.
  • Sign-in and role changes are themselves on the audit trail.

12

Fraud signals

Fake invoices, odd payments, and a maker-checker

Fraud controls here are visible checks and a second person. They are not a hidden score that declines a customer while nobody can say why.

In the product

  • Hold an invoice that duplicates another on number, vendor, and amount, and flag near-duplicates a person should compare.
  • Alert when a vendor or customer bank detail changes, and require the checker before the new detail is used.
  • Flag an amount that breaks that vendor’s recent pattern. The pattern is shown beside the flag.
  • Hold a payment advice that does not match an open invoice.
  • Maker-checker on payment release, write-off, and bank-detail change: the preparer cannot approve their own action.

How it stays controlled

  • Every flag can be cleared by a permitted checker, with a reason that stays on the record.
  • The system does not auto-reject a customer. It stops the action until a person decides.
  • Overrides are audited. A cleared flag is not the same as a flag that never existed.

Included

  • Duplicate and near-duplicate detection, bank-detail change control, amount anomalies, unmatched payments, and maker-checker.

Outside this scope

  • No guaranteed catch rate, and no black-box score presented as a fact.
  • No silent rejection. A signal waits for a checker.

13

Forecast

Cash in, from behaviour and due dates

The forecast is a collections view. It says what is likely to arrive, given what was invoiced, when it is due, and how this customer has paid before.

In the product

  • Weight open invoices by that customer’s observed days-to-pay. A customer who usually pays two weeks late is not drawn on the due date.
  • Show the due-date calendar for 7, 30, 60, and 90 days.
  • Where a year of history exists, compare the period with the same season last year.
  • Three layers: already invoiced, scheduled by a pay cycle but not yet issued, and at risk because it is overdue or in dispute.
  • The same view sits on the dashboard, and it drills back to the invoices in each layer.

How it stays controlled

  • A forecast figure always states which layer it came from. Scheduled is not the same word as invoiced.
  • New customers with no history are shown on their due dates, and marked as having no behaviour yet.
  • People can inspect the assumption. They cannot silently replace the forecast with a target.

Included

  • Expected inflows from open invoices, pay cycles, due dates, payment behaviour, and seasonality.

Outside this scope

  • Treasury, foreign-exchange hedging, and borrowing-base calculations. This is not a treasury workstation.
  • The forecast does not promise collection. It describes what the record currently supports.

14

Voice agent

Calls that stay tied to the invoice

The voice agent places collection calls and answers the simple questions. It reads the invoice. It does not invent a balance, a discount, or a new bank account.

In the product

  • Outbound calls that state the invoice, the amount, the currency, and how to reach the payment link.
  • Inbound answers for what is owed and for sending the link again on an allowed channel.
  • The outcome is written to the invoice: reached, promised, refused, disputed, or a wrong number.
  • A dispute, or any question outside the script, is handed to a person. The cadence pauses.

How it stays controlled

  • The agent can only speak amounts that are on the record at the moment of the call.
  • Calls follow the same quiet hours, preferences, and opt-outs as SMS and WhatsApp.
  • A recording or a transcript, where you enable it, is stored on the invoice with the same retention as the rest of the trail.

Included

  • Automated collection calls, balance and link questions, outcomes on the invoice, and handoff to a person.

Outside this scope

  • The agent does not negotiate a new price, change bank details, or take a card number on the call. Payment happens on the link.
  • It does not call a number that has opted out, and it does not keep calling after a dispute is open.

Begin

Turn outstanding into collected.

Bring one customer, one invoice, and the way you chase it today. We will show that cycle on a single record.

Request a walkthrough