Supplier Invoices

When you want a supplier invoice to be paid you will send these to your vault in ProSpend and a new Supplier/Invoice Payment Request will be created for you.

Everyone has a document vault and this is where your receipts and invoices are stored. Click on the Document Vault link to see your unique email address.


The easiest way to get your supplier invoices into your vault is to forward the email from your supplier with the invoice attached.

InformationIf the invoice has been stored on your computer, send an email to your vault with the invoice as an attachment.

New Supplier/Invoice Payment Request

When ProSpend receives the invoice in your vault, we store the invoice and start the scanning and data extraction process to create a new Payment Request.


InformationThis process will only take a few minutes, but if the invoice is from a new supplier it may take a little longer.



   Scanning process


The Launch View

When you open the Request the launch view is presented. This includes the Invoice document, the invoice information and the approver workflow. 

There are navigation tabs at the top make it easy to move between the new work areas - Quick Code, Item Detail and Notes.  If your company uses the Purchase Order module you will see the linked purchase order. 




    Purchase order matching


Auto coded and ready to submit

When the new Request is created the supplier is matched and an expense line is created.

The scanning and matching process will automatically allocate:

  • The supplier
  • Invoice number and date
  • Amount and GST
  • Description
  • Expense type (if set up per supplier)
InformationNote if you make any edits to the claim during the scanning stage, the system will not output and automatically allocate any scanned information

The invoice workflow assigned to the user will then automatically assign the Approvers

If all of the mandatory fields above have been automatically assigned, you will be able to submit the Request for approval.




Coding required to submit

If there is missing information then you will be prompted with an error message and you will need to update the missing information. 

The following errors will be:-

Duplicate invoice was found.  The request is to be cancelled.         




2. Supplier not matched.  You can search for the supplier by typing into the Supplier field and manually allocating it.

 

No Supplier found.    

If no supplier is found you can ask for this supplier to be set up.  Click to add Supplier, complete the mandatory fields and Save.    

You will then able to submit for approval.



Supplier pending

When the Supplier is created you will be advised by email.  You can complete the invoice payment but until the Supplier is created you will not be able to submit for Approval.


Incompleted fields  


Some Requests will be automatically coded.   

If this is not done you will be prompted to mandatory fields, such as the Expense type, Activity or Project Code and/or Description.

You can use the Quick code to update the common fields.




Item detail

Some companies will have extra fields for users to update that are not shown on the quick code or you may want to Split the item

This work is done in the Item Detail view.  Click on this tab and every expense field and other options are available.  




  Splitting expenses    


Supporting documents

If the expense requires further documentation, this can be added to the "Supporting Document" tab

  

Below are the conditions for the supporting documents 

  • Supporting documents can be in PDF, Excel or Word formats.
  • Any files in image formats (JPEG, JPG, PNG and GIF) will automatically be ignored.
  • The system will allow duplicate supporting documents.

Submit for approval

When you have updated the Request with any additional information that is required you can submit for approval.


InformationSome companies may have a locked Approval workflow and some will allow you to choose your Approver.

  Approval workflows.


 Pending Approval or Rejected

Once submitted the Request changes to Pending Approval and the nominated Approver will be emailed.

If the Request is Approved or Rejected you will be advised by email.   If the Request is Approved there is no further action required of you.


InformationYou can see the status of your Requests from your Portal dashboard

Request is rejected

The Rejected request will appear in your Portal. You will be able to see the Approver notes,  take the appropriate action and re-submit for approval.



Self Approval for Supplier Payments and Purchase Orders

If the first approver of a claim is the claimant itself, when the claimant submits that claim, the system will auto-approve it and it will move on to the next approver or to the payer (if there is only one approver).

If the approval limits are enabled, the system will apply those limits. If the claim exceeds the claimant’s approval limit, the system will stop them from submitting the claim unless there are more approvers after the first step.



If self approval is disabled, the system will stop the claimants from submitting the claim.



InformationSelf approval can only be enabled for supplier payments and/or purchase orders.

InformationIf the claimant is the first approver and a delegate submits the claim on their behalf, the system will not auto-approve the claim


Supplier Name and the Project Group Details in the Purchase Order Section within a Supplier Payment

You can now see the supplier name, project group code and project group name in the purchase order section of the supplier payment.



Change Filenames for Supplier Payments and Purchase Order Claim Summaries

Once you export claims to your finance systems, you have an option to download archive files from ProSpend which contains the claim summaries. These claim summaries have all the claim data along with the documents. Please see the archive files section in the export claims page for more information on this.

By default, these archive files are names in the following format - "Claim{Claim ID}".

You now have an option to change these filenames for supplier payments and purchase orders. You can now include the claimant name, the supplier name and/or the invoice date in these filenames.

Please reach out to our support team if you want this to changed.


Sending Supporting Documents along with the Invoices via Email

Currently, if you send multiple PDFs to ProSpend invoice email address, the system will create one supplier payment for each of those PDFs.

We have introduced a new feature where the system will create a supplier payment for one of those documents and the remaining documents are added as supporting documents.

For example - if the below email is sent to ProSpend invoice email address and if the above new feature is turned on, the system will create one supplier payment for one of those documents and the remaining two documents will be added as supporting documents.

Below is the supplier payment that has been created -

Identifying the Invoice

The system will identify the invoice or the primary document using the below logic -

  • Any document with the words "Invoice" or "INV" in the file name.
  • If there are multiple documents with the words "Invoice" or "INV" in the file name, the first document in the list with the words "Invoice" or "INV" in the file name will be set as the invoice.
  • If there are no documents with the words "Invoice" or "INV" in the file name, the first document in the list will be set as the invoice.

Supporting Documents

Once the system finds the invoice or the primary document using the above logic, the remaining documents will be set as the supporting documents. Below are the conditions for the supporting documents -

  • Supporting documents can be in PDF, Excel or Word formats.
  • Any files in image formats (JPEG, JPG, PNG and GIF) will automatically be ignored.
  • The system will allow duplicate supporting documents.

Setting a Supporting Document as the Invoice

If the system incorrectly chose one of the documents as the invoice or primary document, you can set one of the supporting documents as the invoice and move the document set as the invoice to the supporting documents section.

Please note that when you set one of the supporting documents as the invoice, the system won't scan the new document. The user will need to update the supplier payment details manually.

Information This is a database setting. Once it is enabled, the system will create one supplier payment per email irrespective of the number of invoices attached to an email. If there are multiple invoices in an email, the user needs to email them in separate emails.

Information Please contact ProSpend support team if you want this feature enabled.

Validating Badge for Supplier Payments

We have introduced more visibility to users on the progress of our invoice scanning process, particularly when a document has to be routed to our 'Human-In-The-Loop'

You will be familiar with seeing your supplier payments having a Scanning badge. This means we have picked up the document and it is now being scanned with Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology.

Now you will see at times another badge - Validating. This means the straight through scan has not collected all of the information required and it is now being handled by our Human-In-The-Loop team. We have a team of people who are now 'eye balling' your invoice, updating the required fields so the supplier payment request will turn up in your vault with all of the specific information you require.

This new visibility will give you comfort that the invoice is being managed, rather than just seeing it sitting at 'Scanning'.

A couple of notes on any invoices that are routed to our Human-In-The-Loop -
  • When the document has been corrected by our HITL team and the results returned the validating badge will disappear.
  • There will be a time-frame for the HITL to be undertaken - for the document to be intercepted, corrected and then returned with all of the information required.
  • If you do not wish to wait for our validation team then you can still intercept the document and fill the information.

Average Supplier Payment Total for the Previous 6 Supplier Payments

We have introduced a feature in the supplier payment module where the system can display the average total of the previous 6 supplier payments on the claim screen for that supplier that have been finalised. All the user roles can view this supplier average section.

Information To calculate this average, the system looks at all the supplier payments linked to any category or company and created by any user.

Please contact us via our support portal if you want to implement this for your company.


Supplier Name for Supplier Payments and Purchase Orders on the Export Batch Screen

We have added a new column on the export batch screen to show the supplier name for supplier payments and purchase orders. 


Ability for the Approvers to be able to Close POs from Supplier Payments

Prior to this release, when a claimant raised a PO on behalf of the approver, the approver could approve the invoice for payment but could not close the PO. They would see the below error.



With this release, approvers can now check the ‘Close purchase on payment’ checkbox to close the linked PO. By closing a PO, approvers can now ensure that the PO is no longer available to be matched to more invoices.

(ProSpend Ref - ER-2198)


Enabled Smart Update Function for Supplier Payments

The smart update function is used to bulk update multiple or all lines in a claim with an activity code, project group code and/or project code. Previously, this was applied to cash claims, card claims or purchase orders. Now, this is available for supplier payments too.

To access the smart update page, click Smart Update next to the Item Header.

(ProSpend Ref - ER-2485)


Import Supplier Payments

You can now import supplier payments using an Excel or a .csv file instead of emailing the invoices to ProSpend. To know more about it, please click on the button below -

(ProSpend Ref - ER-3073)


Tags for Supplier Payments

With the introduction of e-Invoicing and i-Invoicing (import supplier payments), it is difficult for the claimants or approvers to identify or differentiate between -

  • supplier payments created for emailed invoices
  • supplier payments created for e-Invoices
  • imported supplier payments

There are now icons against the supplier payments on the claim search screen for claimants and approvers. These icons will help them in identifying or differentiating the above types of supplier payments.

Supplier payments created for emailed invoices

Claim search screen for claimants and approvers

Supplier payments created for e-Invoices

Claim search screen for claimants and approvers

Imported supplier payments

Claim search screen for claimants and approvers

e-Invoices and i-Invoices also have these icons on the digital invoices itself.



(ProSpend Ref - ER-3272)


Copying Email Subject to the Description Field Only for Invoices Sent from a Certain Email Address

Previously, enabling the copy email subject feature meant that the system would copy the email subject into the description field for all invoices.

Now, you can specify a list of email addresses and the system would copy the subject into the description field only for invoices coming from those email addresses.

If you want this setup, please reach out to us along with the email addresses you want setup.

(ProSpend Ref - ER-3594)