The Mission
The foundation of everything you will do in the Invoice Automation product starts with invoices. As we discussed in previous sections, we use a 3 way matching between the invoice, PO, and receipt in order to ensure that you are not over-paying or under-paying your suppliers based on what was ordered and what was received. We will be spending a little more time on this section because getting this right at the start will set you up for success. In this section we will discuss:
- Getting to Value Quickly
- What information should you provide to ensure we can properly set up your template?
Understanding Templating
When you onboard with SourceDay we will ask you to provide us with previous invoices from your suppliers in order to create a "map" that can be used for all future invoices. During this process, our dedicated accounts payable team will review each of the invoices to ensure the mapping is correct. We may need to reach out during this stage for questions in order to make sure that values are being mapped correctly. Once we feel a template is ready we will update the supplier as complete in the system, this view will also show you any invoices that still need work.
Once these maps are in place, then we can start processing your invoices either by "drag and drop" if you are adding the invoices, or even better by providing you with an email that can be used by your suppliers to send in invoices to SourceDay. (don't worry, suppliers can still copy you in on the email, or you can also see the PO straight from the Invoice Automation app and download the POs that you need)
Getting to Value Quickly
SourceDay has a whole team dedicated to making sure that templates are being created and working as expected. We have found that by working with you at the beginning stages to find the "right invoice" we can help speed up the templating process by focusing on your top priority (highest volume) suppliers initially to ensure the onboarding is running smoothly through the system.
When you are choosing who to supply for your first invoices we suggest:
- Choosing a supplier that has a large volume of invoices
- Choosing suppliers that usually run through pretty smoothly for you - the invoices are usually accurate -- These folks are prime candidates for "touchless" (more on this later)
- Choosing suppliers that you have a good, honest relationship with, there can be bumps in this process, so it's always easier to go into it with trusted partners
- Supplier where you can provide 10-20 sample invoices that contain samples of your "special" items (like tax, deposits, freight...)
There are some instances where missing or inconsistent information will add additional work on you in order to verify and match the invoice lines to the PO lines. We can run them, but these are usually not the best candidates at the beginning. Be sure to balance the time saved by running the template through SourceDay, and the time it will take to review these items. As you gain more time back in your day from SourceDay automations, you will be able to spend more time on invoices with the following characteristics.
- Invoices do not contain the PO Number
- Invoices do not contain a Subtotal
- Invoices where summary charges (freight, taxes, discounts...) are not listed after the subtotal but at the line level
- Invoices that do not contain Quantity and Cost per unit
- Invoices where you only have 1-2 samples to template from - the more invoices we have, the more gotchas we can eliminate during the templating process (deposits, discounts, taxes, freight...)
- Invoices where items listed and part numbers are not consistent between the PO and Invoice
- Invoices where part numbers (including special characters) are not consistent between the PO and Invoice
- Blanket POs where the part number is repeated
Invoices that will not work well in SourceDay:
- Invoices where the invoice number or invoice date are not present
- Invoices where the unit of measure is not consistent between the PO and Invoice
- Invoices where kits are listed with a quantity and cost and the kit contents are also listed with quantity and cost (if quantity and cost are not listed for the kit contents, we can ignore these items)
Important Values for Success
First, let's take a look at what we're trying to accomplish and then we can dig into the details:
Because we are doing the 3 way matching, we need to make sure that the following items are on the invoice. These are the values that are used to match to the receipt and the PO:
- Item Part Numbers and/or Vendor Part Numbers (without these you will need to match the lines during the review process)
- Correct Quantity
- Correct Pricing (unit cost and line amount)
What information should be provided to ensure we can properly set up your template?
- You are able to provide at least 20 Invoice examples for each supplier
- Invoices should use the similar overall template
- The invoice is provided as a PDF and the contents on the page are not skewed. Our maps are based on values appearing in a certain place on the page
- When Invoices are scanned, they can be offset in a way that changes the location of values on the page.
- The Purchase Order number is on the Invoice and it matches the Purchase Order number in your ERP. If this is not present you will need to manually match the PO and invoice lines.
- If you have a supplier that puts the PO number on the line items versus at the top level of the invoice file, please ensure the supplier is listing the PO number on each line item on the invoice. This helps with automation and SourceDay system will need to have the ability to match each line item to PO number based on what is on the invoice file.
- We are trying to create a template for all scenarios, so the more we have to work with, the better our chances for ensuring data extraction accuracy
- Example: If the supplier sometimes puts additional charges such as tax, freight amount, misc charges, surcharges, etc. on their invoices, provide these as examples for our team to build the template from
If you are an existing customer you can follow this process in order to submit your new template requests. For new customers, please work with the integration team to get your first templates created.
Let's Move on to the Interface - Getting Started with Invoice Automation - So Many Tabs, So Little Time
Missed Something - Want to Go Back or Forward?
- Overview
- What to Expect
- Who's Doing What
- Picking the Right Invoices - You are here
- So Many Tabs, So Little Time
- How to Get Invoices into SourceDay
- Matching and Non Matching
- Vouchering, Posted and Paid Invoices