Agents & automationsUpdated 31 Aug 20263 min

What an agent will never do

It will never file a GST or TDS return, never message your customer, never move money and never create another agent, and it cannot reach past the modules you switched on and the permissions you ticked. The software has no way of doing any of these.

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This page lists the things an agent has no way of doing at all. They are not promises or settings we have turned off for now, and the last section explains how they are enforced.

It will never file a return

No agent files GST or TDS, even with your confirmation or on the night of a deadline.

Filing is unlike everything else Finocket does, in three ways at once. It cannot be undone. Once a return is filed, the only fix is another filing. A wrong figure carries a penalty, in money, to you. And it is made in your name, to the government, as your statement about your own business.

So an agent may do the work up to that line and no further. It can pull the figures, reconcile them, tell you what does not agree, tell you what changed since last month and have the return ready and waiting. You press file. Handing that press to software would hand over the part that is actually yours.

It will never message your customer

Nothing an agent produces reaches a customer, a supplier or anybody else outside your team on its own. That covers email, WhatsApp, SMS and automatic reminders.

An agent can find every invoice that is overdue, draft what you would say, and put it in front of you. Sending is a separate act by a person, and any message that goes out afterwards runs through the same consent and quiet-hours rules as everything else you send. See Outreach & consent.

A message to a customer is part of your relationship with that customer. A wrong one cannot be recalled, and you would find out about it from them.

It will never move money

No agent pays a bill, releases a payment, refunds anything, changes your bank details or touches a payment method. It can tell you a bill is due on Thursday, but it cannot pay it.

Finocket does not execute payments on your behalf anywhere in the product, so there is nothing here for an agent to be given access to in the first place.

It will never create another agent

An agent cannot make a second agent, cannot widen its own permissions, cannot raise its own budget and cannot switch on a part of Finocket you have left off. Every agent that exists was created by a person in your workspace, and the list on Automations is the complete list. It does not grow while you are not looking.

It cannot reach past what you ticked

An agent sees the parts of your books that survive every one of these at once:

  • What an agent of this type may ever reach. Fixed by us, in code that is reviewed. A stock-watching agent has no route to your payroll, and never had one.
  • What you ticked when you set it up.
  • Which parts of Finocket your workspace has switched on (see Modules). An agent cannot reach a module you do not use.
  • Whether that particular kind of action may be taken alone at all, or has to come to you first. Anything not explicitly allowed to act alone comes to you.

These narrow; they never widen. Ticking a permission that this type of agent is not allowed to have grants it nothing. The first list always wins, and the agent's screen shows you what it can actually reach rather than what was ticked.

It works the same way as your team's permissions: a role that is not admitted by every layer is inert, however it looks on the form.

Why these are structural, not promises

A promise is only as good as the next release, so everything above describes what is missing from the software rather than what we have promised.

The part of Finocket that runs your automations has no way to send a message. No connection to email, WhatsApp or SMS exists in it, so there is nothing to misuse, mis-set or accidentally leave switched on. It has no route to filing and none to payment. It cannot create an agent because it cannot write to that part of the database at all. When a run finishes, it writes down what it found and stops; anything that reaches you afterwards is delivered by a different part of the app, through your own notification settings.

We test for the absence, not for good behaviour. The checks that run before any release walk the whole of the automation machinery and fail if a route to sending, filing or paying has appeared anywhere in it, so this article cannot quietly stop being true.

Everything an agent does do is on the record: what ran, when, what it concluded and what it cost, in Activity. And you can stop any of it at any moment, which takes effect straight away.

Related: What an agent is, Approvals & automation, Team & roles.

Frequently asked questions

Can an agent file my GST return for me?

No, and not with your confirmation either. Filing cannot be undone, a wrong figure carries a penalty in money to you, and the return is made in your name as your statement about your own business. An agent can pull the figures, reconcile them, tell you what does not agree and have the return ready. You press file.

Could it send a reminder to a customer without me seeing it?

No. Nothing an agent produces reaches anyone outside your team on its own, whether by email, WhatsApp or SMS. It can find every overdue invoice and draft what you would say; sending is a separate act by a person, and any message that does go out still runs through the usual consent and quiet-hours rules.

Can it pay a bill or move money?

No. It can tell you a bill is due on Thursday; it cannot pay it on Thursday. Finocket does not execute payments on your behalf anywhere in the product, so there is nothing here for an agent to be given access to.

Can an agent create more agents or give itself more access?

No. It cannot create a second agent, widen its own permissions, raise its own budget or switch on a part of Finocket you have left off. Every agent that exists was created by a person in your workspace, and the list on the Automations screen is the complete list.

I ticked a permission and the agent still can't do that thing. Why?

Because what an agent of that type may ever reach is fixed in reviewed code, and your tick can only narrow it, never widen it. Ticking a permission its type does not allow grants it nothing. The agent's screen shows what it can actually reach, rather than what was ticked.

How do I know these limits will still hold after the next update?

Because they are absences, not promises. The part of Finocket that runs automations has no connection to email, WhatsApp or SMS, no route to filing and none to payment, and cannot write a new agent at all. Checks that run before every release walk the whole of that machinery and fail if such a route appears.

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