AP Automation with Purchasing FAQs

You can submit PO purchase invoices for Purchasing automation in either of the following ways:

• Upload documents directly to the Automated transactions list in Purchasing or Accounts Payable.
• Email documents to one of your Sage-provided email addresses.

Sage Intacct creates a draft transaction from the document and adds it to the Automated transactions list in Purchasing or Accounts Payable.

You can get a head start on accurate matches in the following ways.

• Use Supplier names in your Supplier information records that match how names appear on PO purchase invoices.
  Example

  If you record a supplier name as Flyright LLC in the supplier information record, but the PO purchase invoice reads Flyright Enterprise Expeditions, AI/ML might not match the supplier correctly at the beginning. It will learn the correct match, but it will take time.

• Provide source transaction numbers to suppliers that are identical to the numbers recorded in the system.
  Example

  If you use purchase order numbers that include a suffix, but you provide suppliers with PO numbers without the suffix, the system will take time to learn how to match the two transactions. If the numbers are the same, AI/ML is able to make a quicker match at the beginning.

When automating with document matching, AI detects matches between PO purchase invoices and source transactions using a variety of means, including what it learns from corrected transactions that you post. That means that even if your data is not the easiest to match, the AI/ML system still learns how to make matches, over time.

A PO number on the PO purchase invoice is ideal, but it is not required. AI/ML uses other factors to predict a source transaction match, such as quantity, amount, and the project dimension referenced in the purchase order.

This means that over time, AI/ML can predict and match an invoice even when there is no PO number on the invoice.

Intacct matches a PO purchase invoice to a single source purchasing transaction.

Line item handling is based on whether you enable line-item matching in your Purchasing configuration during setup.

With line-level matching, AI/ML predicts line item matches between the source transaction and the PO purchase invoice. Any differences are flagged for your review.

Without line-level matching, Sage Intacct populates the PO purchase invoice with all lines from the source purchasing transaction and ignores the supplier document. When you review the draft, you compare each line to the supplier document and make any necessary adjustments.

AP Automation with Purchasing creates new draft PO purchase invoices from uploaded or emailed documents, then matches them to existing source purchasing transactions. It does not create source purchasing transactions from PO purchase invoices.

After Purchasing automation is enabled, there is a change to how AP AP supplier invoices are handled.

When AP Automation with Purchasing is enabled, Smart Rules and Smart Events do not run on draft transactions until you submit or post.

This is true for any draft that you create in the Purchasing, Order Entry, or Inventory applications, even when the draft uses a transaction definition that is not mapped for automated transaction matching.

AP Automation with Purchasing is optimized for USD currency. While other currencies are usually recorded correctly, we cannot guarantee that AI/ML will recognize the currency.

PO purchase invoices without currency symbols are recorded using the base currency of the entity or level where the PO purchase invoice was uploaded or emailed.

Intacct accepts documents that are:

• PDF, JPG, JPEG, TIFF, HEIC, or PNG files
• Unencrypted
• Up to 20 MB in size
• Fewer than 200 pages in length

Attachments are stored with your other Intacct attachments, in the following folders:

• STXUPLOADGROUP_EMAIL: Documents that you forwarded by email.

• STXUPLOADGROUP_podocument: Documents that you upload from the Automated transactions list.

To view a list of all attachments, go to Company > Setup > Storage > Attachments.

When a PO purchase invoices includes additional files, upload or email only the PO purchase invoice. This is important because Sage Intacct creates a draft transaction for each file you upload or email, whether it is a PO purchase invoice or supporting material.

After Intacct creates the draft transaction, you can add supporting files to the PO purchase invoice as attachments.

Tax details are not captured from the supplier document.

If you defined tax information in the originating transaction definition, these calculations are applied in the draft transaction.

Learn How Sage Intacct populates draft PO purchase invoices

You can upload up to 30 documents at once. To upload more, select Upload again and then drag and drop more files.

If you have multiple purchasing documents, upload the documents in separate files. You can upload multiple files as a batch. This is necessary because for each file you upload, Intacct creates a single draft transaction.

You can view the list of your provisioned email addresses in Configure Accounts Payable. You need admin privileges to view this page.

AP Automation email addresses use the following format.

New customers and companies who have opted in for smart email capabilities will see the following format:

Existing customers who have not opted in for smart email capabilities will see the following format:

When determining your email address, do not include spaces or underscores, even if they are present in your company ID.

Yes, you can forward a batch of documents attached to one email. Intacct creates a draft transaction for each attachment.

The following limitations exist when you forward a single email containing multiple documents as attachments:

• Each document must be a separate file.

• File names for each document must be unique with the batch of documents.

• The email can have a maximum of 200 attachments.

• The size of email message and all attachments combined must be less than 40 MB.

Email addresses are not editable.

Many customers prefer to start by forwarding documents to the email address themselves. Then, as they become more comfortable with the process and confident in the results, they might ask suppliers to send documents directly.

Some things to consider before asking a supplier to send PO purchase invoices to provisioned mailboxes:

• Does the supplier often include extra attachments that would generate duplicate or superfluous drafts? 

  Examples of this include supporting documentation or promotional material. For these suppliers, you might want to forward their documents for them, after removing extra attachments.

• Is the supplier likely to send email that requires your response, other than PO purchase invoices?

  Communicate with the supplier to let them know that this is an unmonitored mailbox for PO purchase invoices only.

• Will the supplier send automated marketing emails to the provisioned mailbox?

  Such emails can result in import exceptions and invalid draft PO purchase invoices. Forwarding PO purchase invoices yourself might be a preferable option.

When the system encounters an error with an emailed document, it sends an error message to the sender. For example, if no attachment was found or the attachment was not one of the accepted file types, the reply includes this information.

If the supplier emails the document from an unmonitored email address, such as a no-reply email, the supplier will not know that they need to resubmit the document. For this reason, you might want to forward documents from those suppliers who send from unmonitored email addresses, instead of asking them to email PO purchase invoices directly. That way, you will receive any error messages and can follow up with the supplier as needed.