Procountor Junior

Procountor Junior was released in version release v51 on April 17th.

What is Junior?

• Junior is an artificial intelligence assistant that predicts postings, VAT statuses and VAT deduction right percentages.
• As Junior makes these account posting suggestions, the user’s responsibility is to check and verify their correctness.
• Junior can be enabled on all purchase invoices or only on certain suppliers and/or invoices.
• Junior must be enabled by the customer – it will not be automatically enabled.

How to enable Junior?

What is required to enable Junior?

To make it possible to enable Junior, the following conditions must be met:

• There must be within 50 purchase invoices within 12 months that are considered business transactions.
  • This means that the invoices must be either Approved, Payment denied, Payment queued, Payment sent to bank, Partly paid, Marked paid, or Paid.
• Purchase invoices must be posted by row.
  • This can be checked on the Usage settings view (Management > Company info > Usage settings).
• The environment must be a Finnish Procountor environment.
• The environment must be in production. Environments in trial usage do not support Junior.
• Junior can only be enabled in Procountor Financials environments.

Where and how can Junior be enabled?

If the above-mentioned conditions are met, Junior can be enabled either on the Accounting view of a purchase invoice with the guided setup, or alternatively on the Usage settings view. Enabling Junior does not affect any purchase invoices retrospectively and will make posting suggestions only to invoices whose accounting can been created after the implementation f Junior, or whose row information has been edited after the implementation.

 

Enabling Junior on the purchase invoice Accounting view

• If the above-mentioned conditions are met, Procountor will suggest enabling Junior when the user opens the purchase invoice Accounting view.
• A pop-up window explaining the basics of Junior and how effectively Junior would work in that particular Procountor environment.
  • Two options are displayed: I would like to try Junior and Continue without Junior.
  • To enable Junior, select I would like to try Junior. This enables Junior for all the suppliers and all purchase invoices in that environment. How Junior can be disabled for certain suppliers is explained later in this article.
  • If you do not wish to enable Junior, select Continue without Junior. Junior will not be enabled and Procountor will not suggest enabling it on the Accounting Junior can be, however, enabled later in the Usage settings.
  • If the window is closed by clicking the X in the top right corner, the suggestion will be displayed again when the user opens the purchase invoice Accounting view again.

Enabling Junior on the Usage settings view

• If the above-mentioned conditions are met, Junior can also be enabled on the Usage settings view (Management > Company info > Usage settings).
• Junior is enabled on the Usage settings view by selecting the option Use Junior posting defaults on purchase invoices.
  • This enables Junior for all the suppliers and all purchase invoices in that environment.
  • How Junior can be disabled for certain suppliers is explained later in this article.

 

In what kind of situations Junior is recommended to be enabled?

Situations where enabling Junior is recommended:

• Enabling Junior is recommended if the expected accuracy for Junior’s postings in that certain environment is excellent. The expected accuracy is displayed in the guided setup when Junior is enabled on the Accounting
• Junior can be of considerable help and is worth trying even if the expected accuracy is moderate. If Junior is enabled with moderate expected accuracy it may be wise to monitor how accurately Junior can predict the postings.

Situations where Junior might not be of additional help:

• If default postings are effectively used in the environment, there may not be any additional benefit from using Junior. In this case, it is recommended to keep using these postings.
• Junior can not handle reversed VAT liability purchase invoices.
  • Junior should be disabled for suppliers whose invoices contain reversed VAT liability.
  • If the company handles mainly reversed VAT liability purchase invoices, it might not be advisable to enable Junior.
  • Junior’s development will continue, and we will notify when Junior learns to handle reverse VAT liability purchase invoices with greater accuracy.

Things to consider when implementing Junior:

• If the company has international purchases, it may be wise to keep an eye on how well Junior manages to set the VAT status and VAT deduction right percentage.
• Junior may not necessarily be able to make the postings if the company has undergone changes in the past year in their posting practices. These include situations like changes in the chart of accounts, or the change of the accountant. In these kind of situations Juniors predictions are most likely more uncertain, but Junior will learn to predict more accurate suggestions in a couple of months.
  • Junior learns to make more accurate predictions even if it is not enabled in the Procountor environment.

What is the working logic of Junior?

Junior posting predictions widget

• Junior posting predictions widget enables following the amount of purchase invoices, on which Junior has predicted postings.
• The widget also enables user to move to Receipt search view or to purchase invoice's Accounting view to review Junior's posting predictions. 
• Junior posting predictions widget appears automatically when Junior is enabled, if the user has not modified the front page widgets before.
  • If the user has modified the widgets on the front page before, Junior posting predictions widget will not automatically appear to the front page, but it can be added to the front page by editing the widgets of the front page.

 

 

• The number with yellow background indicates the number of purchase invoices, on which Junior has been uncertain about its predictions.
  • By clicking on the number the user can move to Receipt search view, on which all the purchase invoices including Junior's uncertain predictions will be automatically listed.
  • The number with yellow background includes only the the number of purchase invoices, on which Junior has been uncertain about its predictions. If there are purchase invoices on which Junior has made only certain predictions based on its working logic, those invoices will not be included to the number.
  • Further information about certain and uncertain predictions can be found on the next chapter of this article.
• Start reviewing button takes user to the Accounting page of the first purchase invoice that includes uncertain posting predictions.
• The widget also provides information about on how many purchase invoices Junior has made predictions during past 30 days. This number includes both, certain and uncertain, posting predictions.

 

Junior's posting predictions

• Junior makes posting predictions based on the row information of the purchase invoices. Therefore, Junior does not utilize, for example, the picture of the invoice, when predicting the postings.
• Junior makes posting predictions that are certain based on Junior's working logic, but also predictions that are uncertain based on its working logic.
• When Junior is enabled in the Procountor environment, the fields that are highlighted with yellow background on invoice's Accounting view are uncertain predictions, so those fields should be especially considered when reviewing Junior's predictions.
• The fields, on which Junior has made certain predictions based on its working logic, have not been highlighted. Even though Junior's working logic considers the prediction certain, it is still a prediction.
  • In the picture below, for example, the VAT status fields include certain predictions.
• The headings of the columns, on which Junior has made predictions are highlighted with a darker shade of the color. For example, in the picture below that kind of columns are Account, VAT deduction % and VAT status.

 

 

• Junior's posting predictions are created when the purchase invoice is created, or when the purchase invoice arrives to Procountor.
  • If a large number of purchase invoice is imported to Procountor through API interface, there may be a small delay in creation of the posting predictions.
  • Also, the posting predictions are re-created, if the accounting of the invoice is edited, for example by editing the row info on the Invoice view.

 

Reviewing and handling of Junior's posting predictions

• Junior's predictions can be approved with Approve uncertain postings button, if the predictions seem to be correct, when reviewing the Accounting view of the invoice.

 

 

• If there are need to make corrections to Junior's predictions, the corrections can be made normally to the fields. After making the corrections, they must be saved with the Save button.
• If some of the predictions are correct and some incorrect, the incorrect ones must be corrected and corrections saved with Save button, before the correct predictions can be approved with Approve uncertain postings button.
• If Junior's posting predictions are wanted to be disabled for one invoice it can be done on Accounting view with the Junior posting predictions switch. The same switch can be user for enabling Junior's posting predictions for the invoice.
  
  • If Junior's posting predictions are switched off, the invoice's accounting will go according to posting defaults.
  • If Junior's posting predictions are switched off, all color highlights regarding to Junior will vanish from the Accounting view.

 

 

• After all Junior's posting predictions have been reviewed and handled, there should not be yellow highlight on any field of the view.
• The uncertain predictions will not appar with yellow highlight after they have been handled.
• The colored highlights will only show on the headlines of the columns, to which Junior has made predictions:

 

 

• It should be taken into consideration, that if the row information (or other info that affects to the accounting of the invoice) on the Invoice view is edited after the posting predictions have been reviewed and handled, Junior will make new predictions based on the new row information.

 

Disabling Junior from a specific supplier

• Junior's posting predictions can be disabled for a specific supplier in supplier's Default accounts view.
• Default accounts view can be accessed from Supplier's basic info view by clicking on Defaults > Default accounts.
• If Junior's posting predictions are wanted to be disabled, it can be done by removing the selection Junior default setting for purchase invoices and then by saving the changes with Save button.
• Junior is recommended to be disabled for the supplier, if:
  • The supplier is having the reversed VAT liability. Junior is not able to handle reversed VAT.
  • The supplier has a lot/frequently credit card bills. Credit card bills usually require editing the row information and attachments, which means that Junior cannot successfully predict the postings for the arriving credit card bills.

 

 

• Even if the Junior's predictions are disabled from a supplier, it still possible to enable the predictions for individual invoices on the invoices' Accounting view.

 

Special situations

Company does not have VAT liability

• If the company does not have VAT liability, Junior will only predict the bookkeeping account, not VAT status or VAT deduction %.

 

Special situations on invoice's Accountin view

• Junior's posting predictions are created when the purchase invoice is created, or when the purchase invoice arrives to Procountor. If a large number of purchase invoice is imported to Procountor through API interface, there may be a small delay in creation of the posting predictions.
• If the user edits the accounting before Junior gives its predictions, Junior will not "overwrite" edits made by the user.
• Junior is not ready with the posting predictions
  • The Junior posting predictions switch is disabled (cannot be used) and the postings are according to the posting defaults.
• Junior has bee unsuccessful to give the predictions
  • The Junior posting predictions switch is disabled (cannot be used) and the postings are according to the posting defaults.
• The tracking period or financial year has been closed before Junior has given its posting predictions.
  • The postings on the closed tracking periods or financial years  will not be changed. Junior will not "overwrite" edits made by the user.
• The Accounting by row selection has been unselected on the invoice's Invoice view.
  • Accounting by row must be enabled on the invoice and in the environment in order to use Junior.
• Rows to transactions / Transactions to rows buttons have been used on the Accounting view of the invoice.
  • After this Junior's predictions are no longer available for the invoice. Predictions are aivailable again if the invoice's row info is edited and accounting of the invoice is created again. 

 

Purchase order has been turned into purchase invoice

• Junior's posting predictions are not available if the purchase order has been turned into purchase invoice, since also the accounting of the order has been copied for the invoice.

 

The postings have been created for the invoice through an integration or with an import file

• Junior's posting predictions are not available if the postings have been created through an integration or with an import file.

 

Balancing and closing the tracking periods, when Junior is enabled

• As a part of usual balancing work, bookkeeping account, VAT status and VAT deduction % (to which Junior makes predictions) can be reviewed with Partner checking report.
• If there are Junior's uncertain predictions on some invoices that belong to the tracking period (or financial year) to be closed, Procountor will give a notification about it.

 

Receipt search

Receipts can be searched with different kinds of Junior-related search criteria on the Receipt search view. The search criteria related to Junior can be added in the Advanced search section of the view. After setting the search criteria, the receipts can be normally searched by clicking on the Search invoices button. 

 

 

How can Junior be disabled in the Procountor environment?

Junior can be disabled by removing the selection from the Use Junior posting predictions on purchase invoices setting on Usage settings view.