Question 1

What kinds of documents does the AI read?

Accepted Answer

Statements of work, master service agreements, mutual and one-way NDAs, change orders, retainer and engagement letters, and prior-engagement references for context — plus the PDFs, scanned pages, and phone photos a client forwards at the last minute. The extractor normalizes the layout and lifts the client, scope, fee, term, IP clause, and deliverable list into one engagement record.

Question 2

How does the anomaly flagging actually work?

Accepted Answer

Every extracted clause is run against a small ruleset tuned to solo-consulting work: scope creep with no matching change order, a fee that drifts away from the signed SOW, a deliverable that assumes an NDA you don't have on file, a prior-engagement reference that doesn't reconcile with the current scope, and a handful of common data-entry tells (transposed digits, doubled fee units, a "monthly" retainer that billed weekly). Anomalies are surfaced as a checklist on the engagement record so you can decide to chase the missing item or note it as an intentional variance before you bill.

Question 3

Will my clients see anything, or is this just for me?

Accepted Answer

Plumbmark is a back-office tool for one solo consultant, not a client-facing portal. Your clients never log in; you collect their documents however you already do (email, text, a shared drive) and load them into the intake pipeline. That keeps the relationship on your side of the inbox and avoids the awkward "did you sign the NDA yet" thread every time scope changes.

Question 4

How fast does a new engagement go from "I'll send the SOW over" to "ready to bill"?

Accepted Answer

Once a client signs your engagement letter and forwards the SOW along with any prior context, most intakes finish in under 10 minutes. The engagement-letter template (id consulting-independent) already drafts in-product, the AI pulls the scope and fee terms from the SOW, and the first invoice walks out of the pipeline with the deliverables and change-order trail you can defend at quarter-end.

Question 5

What happens to the data and the AI extraction — is my clients' information safe?

Accepted Answer

Documents are stored encrypted at rest and only your operator account can read them. The LLM extraction runs against a sealed extract-and-verify flow — the model sees the document for parsing only, never to train on, and the structured fields are what get saved. No third-party retraining, no data sale, and the complete engagement record is yours to export, archive, or delete at the end of the engagement.

Question 6

Is this a replacement for my e-sign / contract tool?

Accepted Answer

No. Plumbmark is the front-of-house intake and plan layer; it hands you a clean, scope-tagged, anomaly-flagged record at the start of every engagement. You still sign in the e-sign tool you already trust — DocuSign, HelloSign, whatever — Plumbmark's job is to make sure what's on file actually matches what you and the client agreed to, not to replace the wet-signature workflow that closes the deal.

AI document collection for solo consultants

Ten clients. Three NDAs. A SOW that lands two weeks after the kickoff.

Three things that move the needle on a solo consultant's engagement.

Solo consultants ask, before they sign up.

Start the next engagement already on top of the paperwork.