Automated Invoice Assignment (AIA) allows users to assign invoices from the invoice capture service to different users based on various characteristics of the invoice. The invoice capture service scans and runs invoices through OCR, then invoices are created within Certify AP.
Before AIA, there were two options Administrators could set in Company Preferences to have invoices created:
- Single User -assign all invoices created from the capture service to the same user.
- Unassigned Invoice Queue - create all invoices from the capture service in a common queue that all users can pull from.
Now, AIA allows Administrators to create rule templates with criteria that will trigger when the criteria are met and assign to a specific user associated with the rule template.
Please Note: If AIA is in use and a rule is not found that can be evaluated for an incoming invoice, it is defaulted to the base Invoice Capture settings above. The invoice will be assigned to either the Single User option if chosen or the Unassigned Queue option.
Administrators have access to the new Manage Invoice Assignments page in the Configuration module.
Once the page has been accessed Administrators have the ability to:
- Create new rule templates
- Edit existing rule templates
- Rearrange the order of existing templates
- Disable/Enable existing templates
- Delete existing templates
Creating New Rules
1. Click the New Rule Template button.
2. Enter the rule criteria:
- Provide a name for the rule
- Set the rule as Active or Disabled, this can be changed later without editing.
- Click the New Rule Criteria button to add parameterization for the rule.
- For multiple rule criteria, you may click the New Rule Criteria button more than once and multiple criteria are applied as sequential or statements.
3. Now, start to add the criteria which the rule will use to evaluate incoming invoices. The criteria begins with choosing which column or element in the incoming invoice data you want to evaluate against. The list of columns available is:
|
Column |
Description |
|
Bill To Address 1 |
Bill to address of the client extracted from the address the invoice is sent to. |
|
Bill To Address 2 |
Bill to address of the client extracted from the address the invoice is sent to. |
|
Bill To City |
Bill to city of the client extracted from the address the invoice is sent to. |
|
Bill To Contact |
Contact person extracted from the invoice if addressed to a person. |
|
Bill To Country |
Bill to country of the client extracted from the address the invoice is sent to. |
|
BIll To Email |
Email address extracted from the invoice if present. |
|
Bill To Fax |
Bill to fax of the client extracted from the address the invoice is sent to. |
|
Bill To Name |
Typically the root department / client name, but can be a department address for companies that use Bill to Department functionality. |
|
Bill To Phone |
Bill to phone number of the client extracted from the address the invoice is sent to. |
|
Bill To State |
Bill to state of the client extracted from the address the invoice is sent to. |
|
Bill To Zip |
Bill to zip code of the client extracted from the address the invoice is sent to. |
|
Currency Type |
The currency that the invoice is submitted in. |
|
FooterType |
Value used to tell us if a line is an invoice line item detail or an invoice footer line item detail. There are four footer types TAXES, MISC, HANDLING, FREIGHT. |
|
Invoice Amount |
The invoice total amount. |
|
Invoice Date |
The invoice date. |
|
Invoice Number |
The invoice number. |
|
Model Number |
The product Model Number |
|
PO Number |
The PO number from the invoice if present. |
|
Product Category |
The category that a product is assigned to in the product catalog. |
|
Product Description |
The product description. |
|
Quantity |
The quantity of the invoice line item. |
|
SKU |
The product SKU number. |
|
Vendor Address 1 |
Vendor address |
|
Vendor Address 2 |
Vendor address |
|
Vendor City |
Vendor city |
|
Vendor Contact |
Vendor contact person |
|
Vendor Country |
Vendor country |
|
Vendor Email |
Vendor email |
|
Vendor Fax |
Vendor fax |
|
Vendor Name |
Vendor name |
|
Vendor Phone |
Vendor phone |
|
Vendor State |
Vendor state |
|
Vendor Zip |
Vendor zip |
4. Once the criteria column is chosen then you will move on to choosing a comparator. Depending on the column chosen comparators will change in order to appropriately evaluate the data in the column. The available comparators are:
|
Comparator |
Description |
|
= |
Equals - evaluates the received value and looks for an exact match |
|
≠ |
Does not equal - evaluates the received value and looks for anything not an exact match |
|
< |
Less than - evaluates the received value for a number and looks for lesser values |
|
≤ |
Less than or equal to - evaluates the received value for a number and looks for lesser or equal values |
|
> |
Greater than - evaluates the received value for a number and looks for greater values |
|
≥ |
Greater than or equal to - evaluates the received value for a number and looks for greater or equal values |
|
Starts with... |
Evaluates the received value and looks at the beginning of the expression and an exact match |
|
Ends with... |
Evaluates the received value and looks at the ending of the expression and an exact match |
|
Contains |
Evaluates the received value and looks at the entire expression and an exact match contained anywhere in it |
5. After choosing the comparator you are now ready to enter in the value that will be used to evaluate the criteria. This is a free text field and allows you to enter any ASCII value. Such as numbers, letters and symbols. For example if I wanted to write a criteria for a rule where all my invoices for a certain vendor, say Unique Office Supplies, are assigned to a user I would complete my criteria like this:
This would evaluate to any time we receive an invoice with a vendor name that exactly matches Unique Office Supplies would register as true and the assignment rule would be applied. However what if my vendor doesn’t use their entire vendor name on their invoices or has subsidiaries with slight variant names such as Unique Office Express and Unique Office Tech. Then I might want to use a criteria more like this:
This would evaluate to any time we receive an invoice with a vendor name that matches this text anywhere in the entire string would register as true and the assignment rule would be applied.
6. Next, choose the user which the invoices should be assigned to when the rule evaluates to true. This can be done with the User drop down at the bottom of the page. All users that have been assigned the Enter Invoice permission will be available in this list.
7. Once you have selected the user simply click the Save button and the rule is ready to be used.
Invoice Assignment
When invoices come in and are evaluated against AIA rules as true they are assigned to the user from the rule. That user will be notified via email that a new invoice has been assigned to them and when they log into Certify AP they will find a new queue has been created to collect and display their auto-assigned invoices.
