Someone accountable for the process, every month.
Getting a process running is half the work. The other half is keeping it right when the world around it changes — and the world around it always changes.
Abandoned software does not stay as it was: it stops working.
And in a process like this the failure is worse than in most, because it is silent. A website that is down is visible; an extraction that went from 97 % to 84 % is not.
A website left untouched for a year still shows the same thing. A process that reads documents does not: it goes on returning answers, and some of them start being wrong. Nobody gets a warning. The error goes into the accounts, or the stock, or whatever it feeds, and only surfaces when someone trips over it weeks later.
That is why the monthly fee is not an insurance policy taken out to be careful. It is the part of the work that decides whether what was built is still any use in a year's time.
Four things that change without asking your permission
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The documents change shape
A supplier switches accounting software and the invoice layout becomes another one. The process carries on reading, but starts taking the wrong number from the wrong place.
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The connected systems change
The ERP's API gains a mandatory field, the export grows another column, the authentication method changes. The warning from the other side comes late, when it comes at all.
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The language model is updated
The version that was running is replaced by its maker and the new one behaves differently on the hard cases — usually better overall and worse at something specific that mattered to you.
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Security flaws turn up
In the libraries the process depends on. They have nothing to do with your business and they are exactly the kind of thing nobody sees until it is late.
What actually happens, every month
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We measure accuracy against the test set
The set of documents with the right answer written out by hand, built during the pilot, is run regularly. When the number drops below what was agreed, an alert fires to us — not to you.
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We watch the queue of doubtful cases
A healthy process sends few documents for human review. When that number climbs, something has changed upstream — and it is a signal that arrives before the errors do.
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We fix what breaks
A new format, a connection that stopped answering, a case nobody had foreseen. It is the part that looks like classic maintenance, and the least frequent of the four.
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We update security and dependencies
And we measure accuracy again afterwards, because an update that closes a security flaw can also change behaviour.
Three plans, and what separates each from the next
The grid with everything each one covers is on the home page. What is here is the reason there are three. They are named after a tree, and the names do not translate.
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Raiz (root) — €600 a month
One process in production, with steady volume. It is the plan for a business that automated one thing and wants it to go on being right. Response to faults that stop it being used within two business days, and a quarterly report. One month minimum term.
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Tronco (trunk) — €1,200 a month
Several processes, or high volume in one. Everything in Raiz, plus response the next business day and a half-yearly review: what changed in the business, and what is now worth automating next. Three month minimum term.
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Copa (canopy) — €2,000 a month
A critical operation — the kind where an outage costs money the same day. Response the same business day, and continuous changes and improvements included up to a limit agreed in writing. Three month minimum term.
Hiring another person for the same work costs a business around €4,800 a month, before holiday, training and cover. Work outside the plan: €130 an hour, stated and agreed before it starts.
How quickly we respond
If the fault stops the process being used — it has halted, or it is returning rubbish — the time depends on the plan: two business days on Raiz, the next business day on Tronco, the same business day on Copa. Everything else is two business days on all three.
In practice it is almost always faster than that, and there are no fixed hours: if a Copa process stops on a Sunday, we answer on the Sunday. How long the fix takes depends on the size of the problem, but we always say when it will be done before starting, so nobody is left waiting without knowing what for.
Responding is not the same as fixing, and there is no point pretending otherwise. What is guaranteed is that someone has picked the thing up within the time and said what they are going to do — not that a problem that takes three days to solve is solved in two hours.
Time zones: we work Portuguese business hours, which is UTC in winter and UTC+1 in summer. For clients further east or west that is stated in the contract rather than left to be discovered.
One page a quarter, on the three months before it
Written to be read by the person who decides, not by the person who programs.
- How many documents were processed, by type
- The accuracy measured in the period, and how it compares with the quarter before
- How many documents went to human review, and why
- What failed, when, and how long it took to fix
- The security updates applied
- The hours of manual work the process saved in the period
- What changed in the surrounding systems and what had to be adapted
- What we recommend for the next quarter, if anything
The code, the data and the test set are yours
From the first day, not from the moment you want to leave. The complete code, your data, and — the one usually forgotten — the test set of documents with the right answers, which is the most expensive part to rebuild and the one that ties a client to a supplier hardest.
If one day you want to leave, you give thirty days' notice once the minimum term is up and you take all of it, with the documentation of what runs where. There is no exit fee.
What the monthly fee does not cover
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Automating a new process
A second document type, a connection to a system that did not exist before, a different process altogether. That is building, quoted separately, and it normally starts with a shorter pilot.
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The cost of the models and the infrastructure
What is paid to whoever serves the language model and whoever hosts the process is billed at cost, with no margin, and shown separately. The pilot states what that is per document, so there is no surprise.
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Work outside the plan
€130 an hour, always stated and agreed before it starts. On the Copa plan there are continuous changes and improvements included, up to a limit agreed in writing.
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Correcting data that already went in wrong
If an error got through and contaminated older records, cleaning it up is separate work. We help you understand how far the damage goes at no charge — fixing it is what is not in the plan.
What we are asked before people decide
Why do I need a monthly fee if the process already works?
Because the world around it does not stand still. A supplier changes their invoice layout, a connected system changes its API, the language model underneath is updated by its maker. None of that depends on you or on us, and all of it makes accuracy fall without anyone touching a line of code. The monthly fee is what makes sure someone notices before the error reaches your accounts.
What happens if I take no plan at all?
We hand over the process working and the code is yours. It does not stop the next day — it probably runs well for months, and that is the part that misleads. Then a format changes and the extraction starts getting things wrong silently, or a dependency has a security flaw nobody updates. If you would rather handle that in-house, we tell you exactly what to watch and how often. What we will not do is pretend it is not needed.
How many hours of changes does each plan include?
None, and that is deliberate. We do not sell hours: selling hours makes the client count hours instead of looking at the result, and makes us argue about minutes instead of accuracy. What each plan covers is the process working within the agreed numbers. The Copa plan includes continuous changes and improvements up to a limit agreed in writing in the contract. Work falling outside the plan is €130 an hour, stated and agreed before it starts.
How quickly do you respond to a fault?
It depends on the plan and on the severity. On Raiz we respond to faults that stop the process being used within two business days. On Tronco, the next business day. On Copa, the same business day. In practice it is almost always faster than that, and we keep no fixed hours: if a Copa process stops on a Sunday, we answer on the Sunday.
How do I know accuracy has not fallen?
There is a set of documents with the right answer written out by hand, built during the pilot, and the process is measured against it regularly. When the number drops below what was agreed, an alert fires to us. Once a quarter you get a written page with the accuracy for the period, the volume processed, what failed and what was fixed.
Is there a lock-in?
On Raiz the minimum term is one month. On Tronco and Copa it is three months, because the first thing done on a new plan is tuning thresholds and alerts against the client's real volume, and that does not fit into thirty days. There are no twelve-month contracts: they existed until 5 September 2026 and were withdrawn.
Does our data leave the European Union?
No. Processing happens inside the European Union and your documents are not used to train any model. The data processing agreement required by Article 28 of the GDPR is signed before the first file reaches us, not afterwards, and it is drawn up in English.
What if we want to leave?
You give thirty days' notice once the minimum term is up, and you take everything: the complete code, the data, the test set of documents with the right answers, and the documentation of what runs where. There is no exit fee and we hold nothing hostage.
Do you operate processes you did not build?
Yes, and it comes up often: someone built a proof of concept with a language model that never reached production, or reached it and nobody looks after it. Before we say yes, we look at what exists and tell you frankly what we found — sometimes it is worth keeping, sometimes rebuilding costs less than patching. That first look is free.
Do you work with companies outside Portugal?
Yes, and this English side of the site is that offer. terraroot works from Portugal and the projects run remotely from start to finish. Contracting and invoicing are in English, invoicing is in euros wherever you are, and the GDPR paperwork is drawn up in English.
Who is looking at your process this month?
If you already have something running on a language model and nobody is looking after it, tell us what it is. That first look is free.