About AP Automation with Purchasing

Streamline the process of adding purchase transactions by enabling Purchasing automation, included with your subscription to AP Automation.

Workflow

With AP Automation with Purchasing, you define which Purchasing transactions you want to automate. You can elect to automate transactions with document matching, without document matching, or both.

Then, instead of manually adding and converting Purchasing documents to vendor invoices, you let Sage Intacct create incoming transactions for you using the following flow:

1. You email or upload vendor invoice documents for automated processing.
2. Sage Intacct uses artificial intelligence (AI) to detect the vendor and document type. When matching is configured, AI matches the vendor invoice to an existing purchasing transaction.
3. The system creates a draft transaction for you with the source document attached. Learn about how Sage Intacct populates draft transactions.
4. You validate the draft transaction against the source vendor invoice, make corrections as necessary, and then post.
   As you review drafts, you have the option to change the transaction type, add or change the match to a different purchase transaction, or change the draft transaction to an AP bill.
5. Your corrections are fed back to the AI engine where it updates the machine learning (ML) model to improve future predictions.

Making changes

• Automated transactions appear in a new Automated transactions list, which is available in the Purchasing and Accounts Payable menus.
• Transactions are always created as drafts; you maintain control over when they are posted.
• You can change the document match for a draft transaction at any time before you post it.
• If you think the draft transaction should use a different transaction definition, you can change it.
• For transactions that do not belong in the Purchasing workflow, such as rent or utility bills, you can select Change to AP bill to move the transaction to Accounts Payable.
• If you want Sage Intacct to create all future transactions for a vendor as AP bills, you can set Always create AP bills for this vendor as a preference.
• Import exceptions such as duplicates are flagged on the Automated transactions list, bringing them to your attention.

Accuracy improves over time

When you first begin to use AP Automation with Purchasing, vendor and transaction matches might not be as accurate as you want. However, the more you use submit vendor documents and correct the transaction information, the more AI/ML learns from your corrections to improve future predictions.

Learn how automated transaction matching uses AI.

Before you begin

Purchasing automation requires AP Automation. If your company was not previously subscribed to AP Automation, the setup process for Purchasing automation begins after AP Automation is full enabled. Your data is synced with the Sage Network when AP Automation is set up, which allows AI to match incoming transactions to your vendors.

After enablement is complete on the backend, you are ready to tell Intacct which transaction definitions to use in the following situations:

• When creating draft vendor invoices
• When looking for the source purchasing transaction, if document matching is selected

After you map transaction definitions in your Purchasing configuration and save your changes, your source purchasing transactions are synced with the Sage Network so that AI can match transactions.

Learn more about how to Set up AP Automation with Purchasing.

Regional availability

AP Automation with Purchasing is available in all supported regions.

Additional information or limitations

• Subscription to AP Automation is required.
• Automated transaction matching supports 2-way matching of vendor invoices to purchasing transactions.
  • A vendor invoice can match to one source transaction.
  • You can match a source transaction, for example a PO, to multiple vendor invoices as long as other matched vendor invoices are not in Draft or In progress. Post any draft or in progress vendor invoices to match another transaction to the same source.
• If you already subscribed to AP Automation at the time you enable Purchasing automation, note that this changes how incoming bills are handled. When you upload a document from the Bills list, it creates a draft bill as before. However, bills that you email or those that you upload from the Automated transactions list are processed as draft vendor invoices. They appear on the Automated transactions list. You can change a vendor invoice to an AP bill while it is still in the draft state. Automated bills also appear in the Automated transactions list.
• With matched automated transactions, line items in the draft vendor invoice are populated from the source purchasing transaction, rather than the vendor document. Compare line items and make adjustments before posting the vendor invoice.
• Not supported for transactions that use Avalara AvaTax to calculate sales tax.