Research labs pay for reagents, consumables and service calls out of specific grants, and every charge has to land on a fund that was still open when the invoice was issued. At month end, with supplier invoices and Science Stores charges piling up, a charge to an ended grant is easy to miss until an audit finds it. Here, the Lindqvist Lab in the Department of Molecular Genetics at Ravenford University, the university we use to show ALK at work, checks its 12 invoices for September.
Step 1 of 7
Describe it once
The lab's finance team described its rules in plain words, and ALK drew the workflow: read each invoice, check that its grant fund was open on the invoice date, then route it.
Step 2 of 7
Give it the grant list
The lab's three grant funds, with their start and end dates, sit next to the workflow as a reference. Fund 4-21604, the live-cell imaging grant, ended on September 15, 2026.
Step 3 of 7
12 invoices, read and sorted
ALK read all 12 invoices. 2 were charged to funds it could not accept, 2 had no PO number, 3 were over $2,500 and went to the principal investigator, and 5 were ready to post.
Step 4 of 7
Charged to a grant that had already ended
Northlake Bioreagents billed $3,593.40 for antibodies on September 29, against fund 4-21604. ALK checked the lab's fund list, found that the grant ended on September 15, and held the invoice in Grant Exceptions.
Step 5 of 7
Every flag explains itself
Westmount Gas & Welding Supply's $493.81 invoice for CO2 cylinders named fund 4-19972, which is not one of the lab's funds. ALK quotes the line it read and says why the charge was held.
Step 6 of 7
See the page it came from
Fenmore Glassware's $439.01 invoice opens right next to what ALK read from it: a phone order with no printed PO number, so it goes to PO Exceptions instead of being posted.
Step 7 of 7
The decision: the PI signs off
Anything over $2,500 stops at PI Approval, and nothing moves on until Dr. Maren Lindqvist approves it. This month that is three invoices, $16,328.50 in all, including the $7,853.50 microscope objective from Lyle & Brant.
What ALK checks in each lab invoice
- Vendor, invoice number, invoice date, PO number, grant fund number and total due
- Whether the grant fund is on the lab's list and was open on the invoice date
- Whether a PO number is printed on the invoice
- Whether the total due is over $2,500
- Where each invoice goes next: grant exceptions, PO exceptions, PI approval or ready to post
- The principal investigator's approval before anything over $2,500 is posted
Try it on your own lab invoices
Send one real lab invoice, or a redacted one, and see what ALK finds.