Watch our webinar about line recognition here.

Line recognition means that, in addition to the standard header fields of an invoice, invoice lines are also recognized. The software can recognize tables on an invoice, allowing item numbers, descriptions, amounts, VAT amounts, and VAT percentages to be recognized and transferred into transaction lines. Through different posting methods, you can instruct the software how the recognized data should be posted.

The following proposal strategies are available for line recognition:

This proposal strategy is used when all invoice line descriptions should be copied exactly into the transaction lines. If the invoice line description is always the same, the software can propose the general ledger account used in the last transaction (or earlier transactions if the description does not occur in the most recent invoice) in combination with this description. This allows, for example, a recognized column with four rows and four different descriptions to be posted to four different general ledger accounts.

For the first transaction, you must indicate once which general ledger account each line should be posted to. In the example above, different general ledger accounts can be entered for the description 'Groceries, see specification'. It may indeed be desirable to post groceries with a high VAT rate to a different general ledger account than groceries with a low VAT rate. With this proposal strategy, the posting proposal is made based on the latest entry of the relationship in Zenvoices.

In this proposal strategy, all fields from the last transaction are copied by default. Per journal and relation, it can be configured which fields should be copied.

A transaction line is created per invoice line. The proposal data of the corresponding transaction line from the last transaction is copied. The corresponding transaction line is determined based on the invoice line description.

When the proposal strategy Last Posting is set, a suggestion is made based on the previous combination: VAT + Description. When the proposal strategy Last Posting - line recognition is not sufficient in this combination, a posting template can be applied. For example, when a specific word from a description needs to be used, a posting scenario can be activated using the example below. Unlike the proposal strategy Last Posting - line recognition, the description does not always have to be the same here. In addition to the Description, a proposal strategy can also be activated on the fields Amount, Your order number, General ledger account, Quantity, Price, VAT amount, VAT %, VAT reversed, References, and Article numbers from a column. How to train this is explained in this paragraph.

Tip 1: Do you want to match items to a general ledger account, cost center, cost bearer, and/or project? Then use the 'Item Number' condition to arrive at the desired selection criteria through the options below. For example, you can enter a range of item numbers using 'In between'

Tip 2: If there is no VAT percentage in the line items on an invoice, but another coding is used to indicate the VAT percentage, can you still have the desired VAT codes suggested through a booking template based on line recognition? (In the example below, the code of the VAT code in the accounting package happens to be the same as the code on the invoice, but a different VAT code coding can also be chosen in the booking template.)

Transaction templates simplify and automate complex transactions. A template is created once and serves as a blueprint for future transactions. You can set a booking template to be automatically used for new bookings from a client.

Transaction templates combined with line recognition are ideal for adding transaction lines based on recognized invoice line descriptions. They also allow merging transaction lines with the same description and VAT code.

When it is desired to merge multiple rows from a column into one transaction line, the transaction template below can be used.

In contrast to the proposal strategy Last transaction - line recognition, with a transaction template a part of a description can be used to activate a proposal scenario.

In the example below of a transaction template 'Merge lines with the same descriptions and dimensions' is ticked. This means that the software gives every line where the word 'Deposit' occurs (the description must contain the word deposit and applies to three invoice lines in the example above) and with the same recognized VAT percentage, the description 'Deposit delivered/returned' and merges these on the configured general ledger account.

When it is desired to generate a transaction proposal on the basis of a summary of for example an invoice of a catering supplier, a transaction template can be applied.

In the example below of a transaction template the general ledger account and description which per item is included in an e-invoice, is used to process a consolidated invoice of a catering supplier. Consult this paragraph about processing and reading e-invoices.

Zenvoices shows the read general ledger account from the UBL as “Porposal information" with the UBL view in the transaction screen.

Via the transaction template below you indicate that general ledger 5000 should be proposed when at line level general ledger 5000 is read and that the VAT code should be used which at line level is read. The description must then always be 'PURCHASE MEAT'.

Tip:

With General ledger account and VAT code you can choose 'Automatically match' or 'Fixed value'. Use Automatically match only when this data can be read.

With Description you can choose 'Fixed value' or 'Take over from invoice line'. With Fixed value for example the text 'PURCHASE MEAT' can be entered combined with variables.

Important: Tick 'Merge lines with the same descriptions and dimensions' to merge all invoice lines with the description 'PURCHASE MEAT' and the same VAT code.

Tip: Use the variable {linedescription} + other variables as desired at 'Description' when 'Fixed value' is chosen to fill the recognized line description + for example the month in the line description.

The consolidated statement below from the PDF is then automatically split out.

The working method below is only applicable and necessary when Zenvoices must be taught which fields (such as description and VAT percentage) must be assigned to columns. This can be necessary when for example the word 'Description' is not above a column. Also via the instruction below it can be indicated which table must be recognized when there are multiple tables on an invoice. In addition, tables can be outlined yourself when the correct tables are not recognized.

This instruction applies to all supported file formats except e-invoices.

Please note: are table rows or columns not recognized correctly in step 2? Then contact support to report this. Fields such as description and VAT percentage can be trained; when tables are not split correctly, we would like to receive feedback from our users.

Purchase invoices can be matched at line level. Based on selected tables or e-invoice lines matching is done with orders. Lines without match are not shown. In this way, for purchase invoices with deviations in quantity and price compared to the order, full transaction proposals can be generated.

When fields are assigned to columns (see point 3 in the paragraph How do I manually apply line recognition in the transaction screen?) for purchase invoices at minimum the fields 'Item number' and 'Quantity' must be entered.

Consult all articles about Purchase to pay via this link.

Automation rules for creating transaction lines and assessing purchase invoices are applied. Transaction lines can be useful when there is no VAT percentage in the recognized table; this can be predefined with these automation rules.

Via the button 'Recognized data' in the transaction screen the recognized data can be consulted. Scroll down in the recognized data to consult all recognized lines. The recognition score indicates the certainty that lines are correctly recognized; when one or more lines are less recognized, this will have an effect on the recognition score of the transaction.

Tip: Do you have multiple invoices from the same relation? Then first process one transaction completely; after this transaction is exported to the accounting package the software is trained. Subsequently all other invoices can be read in; these will be proposed based on the configured posting method per relation.

The above applies to both expense invoices and purchase invoices (in combination with the Purchase to Pay module).

E-invoices can be read at the line item level. Unlike PDFs and other file formats supported by Zenvoices, no table needs to be marked here, as explained in this paragraph step 2.e. Information from the e-invoice is read without the application of scan & recognition.

Transaction templates can also be used in combination with e-invoices.

By default, the user permission to manually click the ‘Line recognition’ button is enabled for users who have rights to process transactions.

Go to Manage / Environment / Users and click ‘Permissions’ to adjust per user, or go to Manage / Environment / Roles to adjust at role level.

Under Pages | Transactions, the setting ‘Manually perform line recognition’ can be modified.