Auto Review

Auto review checks every file your client uploads against the document it was filed under, and flags anything that looks wrong — before it reaches your review queue. A client who uploads last year's W-2 into the "2025 W-2" slot finds out immediately, in plain language, instead of three days later when someone at your firm opens the file.

This page is for Owners and Admins deciding whether to switch it on, and for anyone reviewing flagged uploads.

One feature, a few names

You'll see this called Auto review on requests, AI Classification on the usage meter, and AI & Automation on the add-on that raises your monthly allowance. They are all the same feature.

What it does

When a client uploads a file into a document slot, FileOnion reads the file and compares it against that document's checklist. It then records:

a verdict for the upload
a short, plain-English reason written for the person who uploaded it
which checklist items the file satisfies

Reviews usually complete within a few seconds and appear on the page without a refresh.

It advises — you decide

Auto review never approves, declines, or deletes anything. Every verdict is a suggestion. The moment a person approves or declines an upload, the flag is resolved.

Turning it on

Auto review is off by default and only Owners and Admins can change it. There are two levels:

Workspace default

Go to Organization → AI & Automation. The first card is Auto review new requests by default:

When on, uploads on new requests are checked against each document's checklist automatically. Each request can still override this with its own toggle.

Switch it to On for new requests and click Save changes. This affects requests created from then on.

Per request

Any single request can override the workspace default:

When composing — in the New Request form's Settings section, the Auto review toggle. The caption tells you which way you're set: Following your workspace default, On for this request, or Off for this request, even though your workspace default is on. A Use workspace default link puts it back to inheriting.
After sending — the Auto review card at the top of the request page has the same toggle.

Freeform requests can't use auto review

A freeform request has no document list, so there is no checklist to check an upload against. The toggle is visibly disabled with the note "Freeform requests have no document list to check uploads against." Switch the request to a document list to enable it.

Reading verdicts (your side)

The Auto review card sits at the top of a request, visible to Owners and Admins only. It shows a three-color bar and counts:

Verdict	Means
Verified	The file matches the document it was filed under
Needs review	Something looks off — worth a human eye
Wrong document	This is not the document that was asked for
Not checked	The file type isn't supported for review, or the review was skipped
Check failed	The review couldn't complete. Nothing was charged, and any earlier verdict is kept

When anything is flagged, an amber Review N flagged → button opens review mode with those files queued up.

Each uploaded file also carries its verdict as a small chip. Hovering it shows what the review thought the document was and how confident it was. In review mode, the sidebar marks each file with a colored dot: ✓ verified, ! needs review, ✕ wrong document.

The review rail

Review mode — opened with Review N flagged → or Review All Documents, or from the single-file viewer — shows the AI's full working in a right-hand rail with three tabs: Review, Comments, and Details. Arrow keys move between files ("Reviewing: document · File 2 of 3"), A approves, D declines.

The Review tab shows, for the file you're looking at:

The verdict, with the AI's one-sentence reason and the detected document type. Confidence is always a word — High, Medium, or Low — never a percentage, and it refers to confidence in the detected document type.
Checklist results — each checklist item with a status chip and, where the AI found it, the supporting passage quoted from the document so you can check the claim against the page: Met, Failed, Couldn't tell, or Not this document (neutral — the item belongs to a different file in the slot, not an error).
Slot coverage — a roll-up across all files uploaded to the document slot: Complete, Partial, Needs review, or Outstanding, with per-item notes.
Run again — re-runs the review on this file, for example after the client replaced the upload or if a check failed. A re-run that can't proceed says why in plain terms (monthly allowance used up, unsupported file type, or try again in a moment).

The rail reminds you on every verdict: AI can be wrong — check it in the document. And when there's no verdict, the rail says why rather than sitting blank — unsupported file type, review still running, check failed (nothing charged), no checklist on the document, or auto review off for the request.

The Details tab carries the file's metadata (name, size, type, status, detected type, when it was checked) and the AI summary block with its Generate/Regenerate buttons.

Declines drafted from the verdict

Click Decline… (or the Use in decline → shortcut on the AI's reason) and the decline dialog arrives pre-filled: the message to your client is drafted from the AI's explanation — marked as drafted by AI until you edit it — and a reason category is pre-selected from the verdict (Unreadable, Wrong document, Wrong year or period, Incomplete, or Other). Edit anything you like; nothing is sent until you click send. Your client sees the message and can re-upload.

Flagged uploads block bulk approval

You can't click Approve All Documents while flagged uploads are unresolved:

Resolve N flagged uploads before approving.

Approve or decline each flagged file and the block clears. This is deliberate — it stops a flagged wrong document from being swept through in a bulk approval.

What your client sees

Your client sees auto-review results on their own uploads. Read this section before switching the workspace default on.

Clients get softer wording than you do, because "Verified" would read to a client as "my firm approved this" — which is not what happened:

You see	Your client sees
Verified	Looks good
Needs review	Please check
Wrong document	Wrong document
Not checked / Check failed	Not checked

Under the file, the client reads a one-sentence explanation written for them — for example "This looks like a utility bill rather than a W-2 — please upload your 2023 W-2." These are written to be direct and blameless, and to say what to do next.

Each document also shows a What we need strip listing the checklist, with each item marked received, still needed, or please re-upload, and an overall status of All received, Partly received, Please check, or Not received yet.

Clients never see your rollup counts, the review-mode workspace, or anything about usage and billing.

When you approve or decline a document, the client also gets a notification row in their portal's bell — see The Client Experience.

Nothing has been checked yet? Nothing is claimed.

If auto review hasn't evaluated anything on a document, the client just sees a neutral list of what to send — no "Not received yet" labels. A firm with auto review off never tells a client a file is missing when they already sent it.

What can and can't be checked

Supported:

PDF
Images — JPEG, PNG, GIF, WebP, BMP, TIFF, and HEIC/HEIF (the format iPhones use by default)
Office documents — Word (.docx, .doc, .rtf), Excel (.xlsx, .xls), and PowerPoint (.pptx, .ppt)

Office documents are converted to PDF before they're read, and a multi-page TIFF is read in full rather than just its first page. You're charged for the pages of the converted document — so a two-page Word file counts as two pages, not one.

Skipped (marked "Not checked", and free):

any other file type — ZIP archives, plain text, and so on
macro-enabled Office files (.docm, .xlsm, .pptm)
files larger than 18 MB
documents longer than 100 pages once converted (worth knowing for wide spreadsheets, which can spread across many pages)
uploads that aren't attached to a request document (files added straight to the File Manager)
documents with no checklist

A file is identified by its actual contents, not its name — so a document that was renamed, or that your browser labelled incorrectly on upload, is still read correctly.

If a review fails partway, the upload is marked Check failed, nothing is charged, and any earlier good verdict is preserved — a failed re-check never wipes a result you already had.

What it costs

Every plan includes a free monthly allowance of AI reviews — 25 on Personal, 100 on Professional, 300 on Enterprise, 10 during the trial. One review covers one document of up to 5 pages.

Without the add-on, running out simply stops auto review until the counter resets; you are never billed for going over. The AI & Automation add-on raises the allowance and unlocks metered overage with an optional spend cap.

Full details, including current pricing: Plans & Billing → AI & Automation add-on.

Auto review vs. AI summaries

These are two different features and it's easy to mix them up:

	Auto review	AI Summary
What it does	Checks an upload against the document it was filed under	Writes a summary and tags for a file
Runs	Automatically, when a file is uploaded	When you click Generate in the review sidebar
Client sees it	Yes	No — firm-side only
Counts against your AI allowance	Yes	No

See AI Request Builder for AI summaries and for drafting requests with AI.