built invoice workflow. tested thoroughly. deployed. day 3: broke silently. client discovered it before i did. THE PROBLEM gmail auth expired. n8n workflow just stopped. no alerts. no retries. client: "why aren't invoices processing?" me: "let me check..." (panicking) THE FIX added error handling nodes: - try/catch around extraction - retry logic with delays - slack webhook when fails - route failures to review queue took 20 minutes to add now when things break i know immediately. client never notices. what error handling do you build in from the start?

Sales pipeline template from community works perfectly. Lead tracking, communication automation, deal progression - all flawless. Contract stage though? Bottleneck city. Sales closes deal → Sends contract to legal → Legal finds issues → Back to sales → Fixed → Resubmitted → 4-5 days wasted. Not because legal was slow. Because half the contracts had basic policy violations that sales should've caught. THE PROBLEM PATTERN: Payment terms wrong. Liability limits off. SLAs that operations can't deliver. Discount levels exceeding authority. Terms legal always rejects. Sales sent anyway. Legal sent back. Sales fixed. Resubmitted. Another 2 days. Average: 4-5 days at contract stage. Killing deal velocity. Worse: Some deals lost during delay. Competitors moving faster. I ADDED CONTRACT PRE-VALIDATION: Before legal sees contracts, workflow checks against company policy automatically. Payment terms match policy? Check. Liability within acceptable range? Check. SLAs achievable? Check. Discount level authorized? Check. Standard terms present? Check. ALL compliant → Send to legal (clean contracts only) Issues found → Back to sales with specific fixes needed Catches errors before legal ever sees them. WHAT HAPPENED: Legal review time: 2-3 days → 1 day Why? They're only seeing contracts that are actually ready. No basic policy violations. No missing required clauses. Sales catches mistakes BEFORE bothering legal. Average contract stage: 4-5 days → 1-2 days Deal velocity improved immediately. Competitors can't match our speed now. THE MATH: 3 days saved per deal 12 deals monthly 36 days of cycle time eliminated Closed 2 deals that would've been lost to delay LEGAL TEAM FEEDBACK: "Contracts arriving are actually reviewable now. Not spending time on basic policy compliance. Can focus on real legal review." Sales team feedback: "Getting instant policy checks helps us write better contracts from the start. Learning what's acceptable." VALIDATION CHECKS: Payment terms against approved ranges. Discount levels within authority limits. Liability caps match policy. Required clauses present. Renewal terms standard. SLA commitments operations can deliver. Pricing structure follows guidelines.