What the documents look like
Franchise fee and deposit settlement centers on funds and breach deductions. It does not perform government filing. The daily materials are franchise fee invoices, deposit ledgers, deduction notices and contract payment schedules. The sources behind them are finance systems, franchise contracts, bank statements and store violation records. Updates happen monthly and at each deduction.
In cross-border and multilingual work, one deposit refund may involve a Chinese contract clause, an English invoice and a deduction notice in a third language. Citation tracing has to map each cited passage back to a specific document, a specific clause version and a specific period. The tracing step also has to locate the notice text that corresponds to a particular deduction reason. This is the operational core of the category: the settlement team needs to know which file a quotation came from before any amount, deduction or refund position is discussed.
Constraints at the citation tracing step
The knowledge base search node can select one or more knowledge bases that share the same vector model. Its output is an array of cited content, and the length may be zero. When nothing is retrieved, the output path still runs. An empty array means no citation was obtained in that search; it does not mean the workflow raised an error and stopped.
Retrieved results are handed to the answering step, where each answer sentence is checked against the cited source text. Similarity and the minimum relevance score are filtering thresholds. They do not perform permission or entity isolation, and retrieval by itself is not authorization. Mixed retrieval merges multiple result paths through RRF. Reranking requires a rerank model and has to be enabled by configuration. Image retrieval requires image input and matching model capability. These paths are not all executed on every request.
Hypothetical paper exercise. A franchise contract states that deposit refund is conditional on store handover. The source text reads: "A deposit refund application may be submitted to Finance only after the Franchise Management Department confirms that handover is complete." It also reads: "The handover completion date is the date recorded on the handover form signed by both parties." The draft sentence under review is: "This franchisee's deposit has entered the refund process." Checking requires the same franchisee as subject, the same deposit as object, and the handover form signature as the status condition. When the signature evidence is absent, the draft sentence is unsupported.
Configuration and implementation checks
| Configuration or check item | Value or action on this page | Basis and comparison method |
|---|---|---|
| Linked knowledge bases | Link only knowledge bases that share the same vector model | The documentation requires the same vector model for joint linking; check the identifier first and exclude non-matching bases |
| Search mode | Hypothetical trial starting point: mixed retrieval | Number and amount lookups benefit from full-text hits, while semantic recall covers multilingual wording; compare against semantic retrieval alone |
| Citation limit | Hypothetical trial starting point: a number of tokens | The documentation controls the citation limit in tokens; compare citation completeness against a shorter limit |
| Minimum relevance | Hypothetical trial starting point: a middle value | The documentation states this value takes effect only in semantic retrieval or with reranking; compare recall range against a higher threshold |
| Citation output handoff | Pass the citation array to the answering step | Output length may be zero; treat an empty array as no citation obtained and check the downstream design |
| Document version check | Search current and historical versions separately | Whether a citation is adopted still depends on valid-version review; answer fluency does not replace source evidence |
Three common errors
- Treating a retrieval hit as authorization. Input is a retrieval request about a deposit refund application. Compare the retrieved result against the approval record. The observable result is that cited content exists while no signed handover form is present. The refund status remains to be verified, and retrieval produces no authorization effect.
- Treating an empty citation array as an error. Input is the paper empty result
[]. Compare the downstream node design. The observable result is that the path continues to the next node. If the downstream treats it as an error, the handoff design is incorrect. - Treating an unstated field as a contradiction. Input is the draft sentence and the source text. Compare the same subject, the same period and the same field. The observable result is that the source states handover-stage evidence only and does not state finance confirmation. The sentence is unsupported; it cannot be judged as a denial or a conflict.
How to verify the setup
- Input the source text and the draft sentence from the hypothetical exercise. Compare whether subject, object and status come from the same source. The observable result is that the draft sentence is marked as pending verification when the signed handover form is absent. The condition is met when the conclusion matches the evidence gap.
- Input the paper empty result
[]. Compare whether the downstream node continues execution. The observable result is that the path runs through without triggering an error branch. The condition is met when the empty-result handoff matches the documented description. - Input two knowledge base identifiers that use different vector models. Compare whether they can be linked together. The observable result is that the non-matching base is excluded and the actual observation is recorded. The condition is met when no cross-model retrieval comparison is performed to assess missed recall.