Processing Invoices

Invoice data takes the form of .csv or .xml files. These files are stored daily in the directory specified for the inbound interface in the Administration tool, and then imported into the invoice management system by an automated process.

The inbound interface is assigned to an Organisation Unit in the Administration tool. Doing so makes the invoices accessible to a particular user or group of users, ready for processing. These invoices are listed on the first screen of the Invoice module:

The processing flow works like this:

The various stages of the processing phase are:

Auto reconciliation: If the invoice has been given an order reference (in the form TVLDxx-nnnn), an automated process tries to match the invoice to the corresponding trip booked in the Travel database.
Check for disparity: If the trip is found via the order reference, the invoice management system checks for any disparity between the invoice amount and the trip booking amount in the Travel database. The tolerance can be configured by means of the Billing Tolerance Rules in the Administration tool.
Auto adjustment: If automated reconciliation does not succeed (for example, if the order reference is not found in an invoice file), the invoice management system attempts an automated adjustment to match a service item with user details found in the invoice statement, such as an Employee ID or a name-and-surname combination.
Manual adjustment: If automated adjustment does not succeed, you can make adjustments manually - see Adjusting an Invoice.
Analytical allocation: Invoices can be associated with a set of custom fields which can be used to categorise the item costs - see Performing Cost Allocation.
Accounting allocation: Invoices can be associated with the codes used in General Ledger (GL) accounts, for example in the accounting section of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) suite. Doing so means that, when invoice data is exported to an accounting system, these codes can be used for analysis purposes in the accounting software. For more information, see Exporting Invoices to an Accounting System.

At the end of the processing phase, an invoice is ready for the approval phase, which is described under Approving or Disputing Invoices.