Procountor software contains all the tools needed for the processing and payment of purchase invoices. This page briefly goes through the process of purchase invoice handling.
The picture above illustrates the steps of purchase invoice processing in Procountor. The same picture appears also in other articles covering further information information of each step of the process. In those pictures, the step the article is covering is marked in the picture.
Entering purchase invoices
Receiving electronic invoices
The most efficient way to enter purchase invoices in Procountor is to receive them as e-invoices. An e-invoice is an electronic invoice, from which information can be directly imported to the accounting software without any manual work in the entry. This improves operational efficiency and reduces errors in accounting entries.
Procountor has direct send and receipt connections for electronic invoices. You only need to give your electronic invoice address to the invoice sender. Then, the e-invoices start to arrive automatically at your Procountor environment with the status Received, ready for you to verify, approve and pay electronically. The accounting entries of the invoices will also be generated automatically on the basis of accounting defaults.
Read more about electronic invoices and their introduction.
Scanning service for purchase invoices
If an invoice sender is not yet able to send e-invoices, but you want to process those purchase invoices electronically, you can use the OpusCapita purchase invoice scanning service (will change to a new scanning service Apix Messaging Oy during the spring 2022). The purchase invoices will be addressed to a separate PO box or email address in the scanning service that transfers them to your Procountor environment. From there you go on processing them as per normal in fully electronic format.
Both purchase invoices received as e-invoices and those received through the scanning service arrive at Procountor with the status Received. You can search them easily using the Receipt search function.
If Apix e-invoice address has been added to Procountor and a purchase invoice has been received to OpusCapita e-invoice address, or via OpusCapita or Xerox scanning service, a notification is shown in the Invoicing information of purchase invoice.
Entering purchase invoices manually
In Procountor a purchase invoice can also be entered by hand, either using a supplier found in the supplier register or directly using an empty invoice template. You can enter the purchase invoice either in the main menu option New > Purchase invoice or in the supplier register by clicking the Create invoice for partner button. You can also create a new purchase invoice by searching an existing invoice and using the invoice copying function.
Verification and approval of purchase invoices
Verification and approval
Before you pay, you have to check the received purchase invoices. For this, Procountor has verification and approval functions for received purchase invoices. Verification means that you check the contents of the purchase invoice against e.g. the order confirmation, and approval means that the invoice is OK to pay. After approval, the invoice also becomes a business transaction from the accounting point of view.
If the invoice has to be edited or invalidated after approval, the invoice may be returned to the status Unfinished. This succeeds on the Invoice view by clicking Edit > Change state to unfinished, or on the Verification view by clicking Exception > Unfinished. If you want to edit the invoice after this, you can do it in the Invoice -view.
Using of approval circulation
If several persons in the company are involved in the verification and/or approval of purchase invoices, it is advisable to use the purchase invoice approval circulation. Then it is possible to define designated verifiers and approvers to invoices and they can receive email notifications of invoices waiting for verification when needed.
Accounts payable and payments
Search purchase invoices
Open purchase invoices include verified or approved purchase invoices that have not yet been paid. You can search for them through Search > Receipt Search, by choosing Open invoices as Search type and Purchase invoice as Receipt type.
Another option to search for purchase invoices is to select search type Invoices to pay and receipt type Purchase invoice. This will search all the purchase invoices that are in status Approved or Partly paid.
Paying purchase invoices
You can go to the Payment view through the Receipt search or from the purchase invoice information using the Payment button. If you want to pay several invoices at the same time, you can use the Payment of multiple invoices function. Approved invoices do not proceed automatically to payment, but you always have to pay them as a separate step.
Automatic receipt of bank statements
Bank statements are automatically received from the bank accounts that are connected to Procountor. Withdrawals are posted to paid purchase invoices by matching reference numbers, and paid invoices are removed from the list of open invoices.
If an invoice does not allocate automatically as paid and the transaction can be seen in the bank statement, the invoice can be allocated by hand or marked as Paid elsewhere.
Processing of purchase invoices and payment reminders
If an original purchase invoice has been received and afterwards a payment reminder. The latest payment reminder is left as an open purchase invoice and the original invoice is entered with the status Marked paid; the payment date is the same day as the accounting date of the payment reminder.
For example, when the original purchase invoice is €100, and a payment reminder of €105 has arrived at it, of which €5 is interest expenses. The posting of the purchase invoice and the payment reminder invoice is changed as follows:
- The accounting date of the original invoice is September 1, 2015, and the posting for the invoice is: Debet 8450 Other administrative expenses/Credit 2880 Payment transaction account: 100,-
- The 1st payment reminder October 1, 2015 is posted Debet 2880/Credit 2880: 100,- and Debet Interest expenses account/Credit 2880: 5,-
- The original invoice is entered with the status Marked paid on October 1, 2015, in which case the Payment transaction account 2880 does not show a difference and the latest payment reminder is an open purchase invoice.