Purchase invoice scanning enables the electronic approval circulation of invoices and electronic archiving in cases where e-invoices are not yet available. If you want to buy a purchase invoice scanning service please contact Procountor's sales team myynti@finago.com. New scanning service packages are opened only from OpusCapita's scanning service read more about then here.
Xerox scanning service
Procountor’s purchase invoice scanning service provides a convenient way to convert incoming paper invoices into electronic format and achieve more efficient invoice processing. The mailed invoices are scanned and transferred automatically to Procountor financial management software. The service is produced in co-operation with Xerox Global Services.
When starting the use of the scanning service, the customer is given a dedicated PO box address, which it specifies as the new billing address to its suppliers who send paper invoices. In the service, Xerox receives the invoices sent to the PO box address and prepares and scans them. The invoice’s basic information and row information are interpreted automatically from the scanned invoice. This information is transferred to the Procountor environment of the customer, where it is processed in the same way as that of the e-invoices received in the environment. In addition to the interpreted information, the PDF image of the original invoice is always transferred to Procountor and saved as an attachment to the invoice. The invoices received through the scanning service have the status Received in the system.
PO box address
PO box address will be as following:
Company name PL XXX 02066 DOCUSCAN
In order for scanning service to succeed in scanning the invoices to the right PO box the sender of the invoice should write the PO address to the letter as well, not only to the envelope. It should be noticed that there should not be other items inside the envelopes except the invoice itself.
Items that are scanned from an invoice
- PO box
- Sum including VAT
- Currency
- Due date
- Reference no.
- Bank account number
- Invoice date
- Invoice sender’s Business ID
- Invoice sender’s name
- Order reference and contact person
Interpreted row information
- Product name
- VAT percentage
- Amount
- Unit price
- Row sum
Note! SWIFT/BIC code is not included in the interpreted information in scanning.
If the row information does not match to the sum including VAT, only one row matching to the sum is created in the invoice. The product name in that row is Invoice according to attachment.
The system attempts to target the invoice to the business partner register using the Business ID and/or the bank account.
If focusing is successful, the following information is retrieved from the supplier register: Address information, default account, default VAT status and default dimensions.
Docusend software
Purchase invoices can also be scanned and pre-processed using the Docusend software, from which you can import invoices as a transfer file to Procountor.
When the file is imported to Procountor, it creates corresponding purchase invoices with the invoice images scanned to Docusend as attachments.
- If the imported invoice information contains a bank account number found in the business partner register in Procountor, the invoice is targeted at the business partner and the invoice information is complemented with information retrieved from the business partner register (e.g. name and address).
- If the file from Docusend contains the company name (field Document name), that name is used in Procountor.
- One row only is always created in the purchase invoice. This row contains no product code or name and the VAT rate is always 24%.
- The invoice number comes from the next available number in Procountor.
- The scanned image is saved as an attachment to the invoice.
Scanning performed by the user
You can scan a paper-based purchase invoice with a scanner and scanning software in the company or in the accounting office. You can add the scanned image to the purchase invoice entered in Procountor with the Attachments function.
You can scan invoices one by one or several in a batch. It advisable to scan invoices to a dedicated folder, which you can name for example “Scanned purchase invoices”. To be able to add the scanned image to the right invoice, you can name it by the supplier and date, e.g. “Procountor2808”. You can use the purchase order number assigned by Procountor in the name if you scan the invoice after entering it in Procountor. If the invoice has several pages and you scan them into separate files, you can include the page number as part of the name, e.g. “Procountor2808p2”. If possible with the scanner and software in use, you can scan a multi-page purchase invoice into one file and name it “Procountor2808p1-p3”, for example.
Purchase invoices are scanned in black and white with a resolution 200 or 300 dpi (dots per inch). Resolution means the sharpness of the scanned image. Resolution 200 corresponds to the sharpness of the fax, and the bank bar code can be read from an image of that resolution. It is not advisable to use resolutions over 300 dpi, because they consume more capacity for no additional allowance.
If the purchase invoice contains several pages (some invoices are printed on both sides), you can consolidate the scanned pages into one file using appropriate software or transfer one by one to Procountor. One purchase invoice can have several attachments.
Greyscale or colour scanning should not be used, because it consumes a lot more capacity compared to black and white images. If a purchase invoice has been scanned in greyscale or colour format, it can be converted into black and white format in the scanning software without needing to scan it again. (However, a greyscale image with a resolution of 200 dpi weakens when converted into black and white, rendering the purchase invoice information unclear.) Our preferred saving format is jpeg that packs the image into an even more compact form. Normally the size of a purchase invoice with a resolution of 200 or 300 dbi is 20-40 kB.
If the purchase invoice contains a bank bar code, you can read it with a bar code reader first, and Procountor decodes the information to a new receipt. The bank bar code contains the beneficiary bank account number, invoice sum, reference number and due date. The supplier information is retrieved from the register with the bank account number. After this, you can add the scanned purchase invoice to the entered receipt.
You can dispose of the paper invoice as soon as you have transferred it to Procountor, if you save the original image in your own computer until at least the next day. As Procountor runs backups every night, the purchase invoice can be found duplicated in our service the next day, as required by the Accounting Act .
Besides purchase invoices, you can also scan expense receipts (e.g. restaurant receipts of significant sums), if it is convenient with the scanner you use. In practice, scanning receipts of insignificant sums, such as for taxis, restaurants, etc., is not profitable and you need not aim for totally paperless accounting.