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- Accounts Payable Automation
- Features
- Invoice capture
Invoice capture
Invoice capture turns a supplier document into a bill the AP team can check. Email, document upload, manual entry, recurring templates and an approved subcontractor handoff can create draft bills. Keep the source document and intake reference attached, so a reviewer can compare the extracted amount with what the supplier actually submitted.
OverviewBills Pending Approval Submission×
Accounts Payable Automation · Invoice capture
New
Bills Pending Approval Submission
Bills
| Bill number | Vendor | Vendor invoice number | Bill date | Total | Source | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BLL-28687 | Northgate Packaging Works | BLL-81704 | 28 Oct | 31,226.47 | ||
| BLL-31500 | Westmere Freight Services | BLL-78136 | 22 Oct | 41,847.67 | OCR | |
| BLL-99289 | Blue Orchard Facilities | BLL-89992 | 11 Oct | 43,706.59 | ||
| BLL-58611 | Westmere Freight Services | BLL-78010 | 25 Oct | 7,575.12 | OCR | |
| BLL-24855 | Iron Vale Equipment Repair | BLL-38957 | 26 Oct | 44,210.90 |
6 of 6 records
Northgate Packaging WorksBills · BLL-28687
EmailVendor invoice numberBLL-81704
Bill date28 Oct
Total31,226.47
Received date23 Oct
What you can do
Capture once and check the details
The AP Clerk reviews the vendor, invoice number, bill date, due date, currency and amount before sending a bill forward. Bill lines hold quantities, unit prices, account hints, departments and project codes. An extracted value is a proposal for the clerk to review; OCR confidence does not authorize a purchase or approve an invoice. Unclear supplier matches remain in the intake queue until resolved.
Bill attachments retain the invoice and supporting material with upload identity, time and source. Preserve the original when a document is corrected. Use the supplier invoice number and intake reference to detect duplicates, including a supplier emailing the same invoice after uploading it. A repeated delivery must not create another payable simply because it arrived through a different channel.
Choose the right route
A purchase-order invoice links to the originating order and then follows three-way matching. A permitted non-PO invoice, such as an approved recurring service, follows the applicable approval matrix with its supporting evidence. Leaving the purchase order blank does not prove that the non-PO route is permitted. The bill’s source and review history explain why it took that path.
Approved subcontractor payment applications arrive from their owning system with a stable source reference. Preserve that reference on intake and retain the upstream approval result. AP still owns its own bill processing and payment decisions. An upstream status should not accidentally create duplicate bills when the same event is delivered again or when a corrected application follows it.
Schedule recurring bills deliberately
Recurring bills hold the supplier, cadence, next run date, amount, account and end date. A scheduled occurrence produces a draft bill for the normal controls; it does not prove that the service was delivered or that the amount remains correct. The AP Manager reviews the template when the contract changes and stops future occurrences when it ends.
Track the generated occurrence against its template so a retry cannot create the same bill twice. Keep prior bills intact when future amounts change. The team can then explain which template version generated a bill and why the current amount differs from a previous period.
What your team sees
- Bills Pending Approval Submission. Review the underlying records within your permitted scope.
- Bills To Match. Review the underlying records within your permitted scope.
What it keeps track of
Data model- Bills
- Vendor bill header. The center-of-gravity table. Lifecycle: Draft → pending match → pending approval → Approved → partially paid / Paid / Voided / Disputed.
- Bill lines
- Bill expense lines. Each line carries its GL account, project / department tags, and optional PO-line link for three-way match.
- Bill attachments
- Attached documents — vendor invoice PDF, supporting docs, OCR source file, contract reference, dispute correspondence. Multiple per Bill.
- Recurring bills
- Templates for recurring vendor expenses — rent, software subscriptions, insurance premiums. Generates a
Billsrow on schedule. - Vendors
- The AP-side vendor master. Includes legal-name + EIN identity, W-9 status, default 1099 eligibility, remit-to address, ACH bank details (masked), and default payment terms. Bank-account changes go through a two-person verify before the new details are usable on a payment run.
- Purchase orders
- PO header. Read-only mirror from scm-procurement when that app is present; primary master here when AP runs standalone. Drives the PO leg of three-way match.
Who uses it
Permissions- AP Clerk
- Captures and checks invoice details.
- AP Manager
- Manages recurring templates and exceptions.
- Approver
- And Controller / CFO make decisions through their assigned approval routes.
- Vendor User
- Can submit permitted documents and view their own bill status.
Set up Accounts Payable Automation your way.
Start free, then use Proto to change fields, steps and approvals before your team goes live.