Documents.
The numbers tell you what happened. The documents tell you what you agreed to. A rent review clause, a loan covenant, a client contract with a rate that changes in year three - none of that is in your ledger, and all of it decides what the ledger will say next.
Data comes in, so it can be reported on, trended and watched.
She reads the terms
Not the file name, the contents. What the clause actually says, which is usually different from what everybody remembers it saying.
She cites the passage
An answer about a contract is worthless without the wording behind it, so she points at the section she used rather than paraphrasing and hoping.
It sits next to the numbers
A covenant is only interesting next to the ratio it governs. Because the document and the ledger are in the same place, one answer can hold both.
It respects your access rules
A document is governed like any other connection. Somebody who may not see partner drawings does not get to ask questions about the partnership agreement either.
Where this usually comes from.
The terms behind the numbers - anything where the right answer depends on what was signed rather than what was posted.
Bulk document storage. This is not a document management system and it is not trying to replace one; it holds the documents whose contents change how a number should be read.
Six kinds of connection, and they are not interchangeable.
Picking the wrong one is the most common mistake people make in their first fortnight, so here is the whole set in one place.
Purpose-built pipelines into the systems you already run
EVA reaches into another system and does something
Your own SQL, read directly and joined to everything else
Spreadsheets and CSVs that never had a system to live in
Public pages worth watching, read on a schedule
Documents, answered.
What kinds of document can EVA read?
Business documents in the usual formats - agreements, leases, policies, statements. The useful test is whether a person could answer a question by reading it. If the answer is in there in words, she can find it and quote it.
Does she quote the document or summarise it?
She points at the passage she used. An answer about a contractual term without the wording behind it is a liability rather than an answer, so the citation is part of the response rather than something you have to ask for.
Can she read a lease and tell me when the rent reviews?
Yes, and more usefully she can read it next to your ledger - so the question can be about what the review will do to your occupancy cost rather than just what date it falls on.
Who in my organisation can see an uploaded document?
Whoever you allow. Documents are governed by the same user groups and row-level rules as every other connection, so a document can be visible to two partners and nobody else.
Connect one and see.
Bring your messiest system and your simplest one. Fourteen days is enough to find out whether this works on both.