Invoice Processing Explained

Overview

In Zahara, you can record two types of invoices – standalone and those that relate to a purchase order. There are several different ways of recording an invoice in Zahara and there are two external applications you can use to scan/load invoices – SmartInvoice & ABBYY FlexiCapture, as well as the inbuilt Invoice Inbox. Once an invoice is recorded, it can be routed for approval either automatically in a rules based system or in Ad Hoc, where you choose the approver. Ultimately, Zahara is designed to export the invoice into your accounts system and there are many options to choose from fully integrated to just a CSV or Excel spreadsheet.

Accruing for Invoices

Invoices should flow into your accounts system very quickly. Users can approve by email and can be reminded daily to do their approvals so there is no reason for big delays as Zahara is a paperless process. However, there will be a point at month-end where you will have invoices in Zahara that haven’t been exported into accounts. There are a number of ways to report on this. Our reporting section has an Order/Invoice difference report. You can also create invoice reports with the export date, showing those invoices not yet exported. Zahara users work in different ways so there should be something for everyone in Zahara. Ultimately you can use the invoices list view to filter down any invoices that have not yet been exported or approved.

Invoice Basics

The invoice list view is available from the documents menu – Invoices (Z3)

The first filter to work with is the time period you wish to display. This will be remembered provided you don’t choose all. You can also set this to show different types of invoices. You can search inside the results by using the search bar just above the list view. You can sort the columns and as stated above choose the fields you wish to display. Clicking the approval icon will show you the approval process. Ultimately you want to see green for approved, green for 100% match with order and green for exported.

Recording Invoices

There are several ways to record an invoice:

Invoice Inbox – Generate your own email address and have the invoices emailed into Zahara. With our Built-in OCR, you can opt to buy a page count and have the invoices automatically read as well, saving all of the keying in. This is the recommended way of getting invoices into Zahara as the PDF element is handled and most of your suppliers will be emailing you their invoices anyway.

Record against an Order – Our favourite way to record an invoice is to start with the Order. If you head to the purchases list view, you can see the status of the order. You can see if it’s approved and delivered.

In the list view above, all we need to do now is tick the order and click Batch Invoice above. The wizard will then run and you can follow that.

From the invoices Page – The invoices list view page also has two icons for recording an invoice. One is a standard invoice the other is for what we call a grouped invoice. The only difference is that with a grouped invoice you can have a different division per line item. If you have read up on structures, you will know divisions are significant. These icons will cause the wizard to run and you can record the invoice easily.

From the + menu item – You can also record an invoice by simply clicking + and ‘New Invoice’. This is usually the way to record a standalone invoice that perhaps you have scanned or that’s been emailed to you personally. You can either record it standalone or against an order. If you select an order, make sure you import the order lines so it matches.

SmartInvoice – SmartInvoice is our simple Desktop OCR tool for scanning or loading invoices. It’s easy to use and good for medium volumes of say 500 – 1500 invoices a month.

ABBYY FlexiCapture – If you have significant volumes of invoices – say 1500+ a month then our go-to software is FlexiCapture. It allows you to work in Batches and has advanced recognition. As an example, we could find a postcode or Vehicle reg and set a Cost Code or Department ID automatically.

Invoice Approvals

There are two types of invoice approval – automated and ad hoc. The approvals help article needs to be read and understood to get the most out of approvals. If you get your invoice workflow right, invoices can hit Zahara and your workflow will determine whether the invoice needs to go for approval or whether it can export automatically into your accounts system (SmartSync, Xero & QuickBooks Online).

Make sure you have read up on approvals and workflows by reading this article:

Invoice Matching

When recording an invoice against an order you are matching it. You will be able to see the GRN status (if an order has been receipted) and you can compare the invoice against the order. The key thing here is to import the order line items. This will save time and link the order and the invoice together. If you don’t import the order lines, you won’t see the balance between the two.

Watch the video below to see how Invoice Matching works. This is a thorough explanation and shows how a credit note can also be recorded.

One very important thing to know: Zahara doesn’t do line by line matching – we only do value matching. ie You ordered £2000 of goods and received £1500 – the balance is £500. We don’t take into account where that difference is and on what line. You can GRN an invoice to show received quantities to assist. We are planning to change this in the first half of 2020 so you will then see a balance on the lines as well.

If you find you cannot record a second invoice against an order, with the message saying “its full received” then turn off the feature in

Business > Settings > Purchase Orders by allowing only GRN restrictions, or neither.

One PO - Multiple Invoices

One of the really nice features of Zahara is that you can record an order and then record multiple invoices against it. For example, it could be a master PO and you expect 12 invoices over the next year. You can record those invoices and always see the order invoice balance. It’s entirely down to you how you create the master PO – whether it’s 12 separate lines or one master line. If you have watched the video above you will see that keeping the line items in place is very important.

One Invoice - Multiple Orders

If you send out lots of orders to the same suppliers, and they send in one invoice covering all of these orders then you can handle this in Zahara. The best way to do this is to head to the Orders page again and to search for the supplier in the list view:

In the example above, when we click Batch Invoice, all of the ticked order line items will show as shown below:

Now you can manipulate these order line items to create the invoice.

Invoice Inbox

If you want hands-free processing of invoices, then the invoice inbox is for you. There are two elements to this: 1. Getting the invoices in there and 2. Getting them read automatically. The best and fastest way to get invoices to arrive in the inbox is to generate an email address in Business > Settings > Invoices Email – you can create one email address per business unit. You will then put this on your purchase order template and make sure your suppliers send invoices to this address. You can also forward invoices into the inbox as well. Read the dedicated help article on the Inbox.

Built-in Invoice OCR

We have chosen a provider that we are comfortable working with, who has great technology and can provide the recognition of line items as well as our purchase order number. This was released in April 2020. We call it InvoiceExpress and it’s designed to make light work of processing your invoices. The key features are:

Line items reading
PO number reading so automatic matching
Built-in rules cascading and validation
Fast real-time recognition – no waiting
Page splitting – handling multiple invoices in one PDF

All you need to test or try this facility is a page count. You can buy a page count from us at any time or ask for a sample test of 50 invoices. Read this help article to find out how to get it set up.

Importing from Xero

If you are a Xero user and you also want to use Dext, Auto Entry or Dochub, you can import your invoices placed in Draft in Xero. Enable the feature in Business > Settings > Integrations and an import icon will appear in your invoices list view page. Read the dedicated article on this to find out more.

Invoice PDF’s

Always record an invoice in Zahara with a PDF. It will be stored in Zahara for at least 7 years. The PDF of the invoice can always be viewed by clicking the paper clip icon in the invoice record. The invoice PDF will be copied over to both Xero and QuickBooks Online and can also be downloaded onto your network or PC with our SmartSync tool.

For belt & braces PDF storage we would recommend you also consider FileDirector which is our go-to document management system. Invoices can be exported into FileDirector as part of a workflow.

Invoice Notes & History

You can add notes to an invoice at any time. Just click on the invoice and then see the history section at the bottom. Click the + icon to add a note or “Add Document” to upload a supporting document.

Adding a Credit Note

You can record a credit note at any time. Just create a standard invoice with negative values. The quantities will be positive but the monetary values will be negative.

Controlling who can export invoices

You can control who can export invoices. Head to Business > Settings > Validations. You will see this section:

You can multi-select the users you want to grant permission to using a Ctrl-Click. However, only users with the finance & admin role will appear in this list. You will need to edit user roles to change this (and you will need the tenancy admin permissions to do this)

Finding Invoices

The global search icon is at the top of the page is next to the help icon. This is a useful tool as you can search for:

Order Numbers
Invoice Numbers
Suppliers
Line Items Contents
Products
Projects

First off choose the type of entity you wish to search for. ie choose invoice. Then key in an invoice number. Then click search or hit enter. If you choose ‘All’ as the category, you can search inside the line item content as well. This is the fastest way to find an invoice.

Coding Approvals

When an invoice is sent for approval, you can specify – both for Adhoc approvals and rules-based – whether the Approver can or must edit the coding. This can be useful if you receive an invoice and you don’t know how to code it. In this instance, the user cannot simply approve or reject, they have to adjust the coding on the item you specified – ie Project / Job code.