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Use e-documents in the purchases process

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You can use configured electronic documents (e-documents) with the purchase documents.

The following purchase documents can be used with e-documents functionality:

  • Purchase invoices
  • Purchase orders (from version 24.0)
  • Purchase credit memos
  • General journals

Note

From Business Central version 24.0, it's possible to connect Purchase Orders with the received E-Documents.

E-documents in purchases

The receipt of purchase e-documents in Dynamics 365 Business Central can be done as a batch job or manually.

How to set up vendors to work with different purchase documents

Follow these steps to configure vendors to work properly with incoming electronic invoices:

  1. Select the Lightbulb that opens the Tell Me feature. icon, enter Vendors, and then select the related link.

  2. Choose the vendor you want to configure.

  3. In the Receiving FastTab, find the Receive E-Document To field to specify the default purchase document to be generated from the received e-document.

    Note

    In the Receive E-Document To field, users can either select a Purchase Invoice or Purchase Order based on what they would like to have created from the received e-invoice. This selection does not affect the creation of corrective documents; in both scenarios, the system will generate a Credit Memo.

    Note

    If the user chooses the Purchase Order option in the Receive E-Document To field, the system will try to update one of the existing purchase orders, but if the purchase order for a vendor in the received E-Document doesn't exist, the Business Central will create a new Purchase Order, using the same approach as creating the new Purchase Invoices explained in this page later.

  4. Choose one of the options you want to use for the selected vendor.

  5. Close the page.

To work with purchase invoices

Run the batch job

Note

This batch job is for automated collection of your incoming invoices. It can work only in a country or region where the functionality exists.

Every time a Job Queue is selected to run, if the external service has incoming invoices that were sent from your vendor, the system collects and imports those invoices. To complete the process, follow these steps:

  1. After the batch job finishes running, the newly imported invoices are listed on the E-Documents page, together with their basic detail information.

  2. To view more details, open a specific e-document.

  3. If there were no errors or issues in the e-document, the Record field maps the document number of the purchase invoice if it's configured on the Vendor Card page (that the system automatically created). Select the link to open the document.

    Note

    This system-created document isn't the posted document.

  4. To go directly to the purchase document, select the Record field. After you open the Purchase Invoice page, check the document. If everything is correct, post the document.

  5. When you post the purchase document, the Record field on the E-Document is updated from Invoice to Purchase Invoice, and the number of the posted purchase document is available. You can select the number to open the posted purchase invoice.

Details about logs are the same as they are in the sales process for e-documents.

Because errors in the sales process are mostly related to the availability of the service, the incoming document can contain multiple reasons. The most common reason for an error is that the system can't recognize the lines on the e-document that you got from your vendor. Therefore, it can't enter lines in your purchase invoice.

There are two common errors:

  • If you want to use this specific line from your vendor invoice that was directly posted to the general ledger (G/L) account, you must correctly configure the Mapping Text value. To bypass this error if you want to use G/L accounts, select the Map Text to Account to create a specific mapping of the Mapping Text value with the Debit Acc. No. value that you want to use.
  • If you want to track the inventory and use lines from your vendor invoice to fill in the items on your document lines, you must correctly configure the Item Reference No. value. To bypass this error, map the external item with your item numbers by using the item reference list. Learn more in Use Item References.

After you fix the errors and warnings, you can manually specify when the system should create a purchase invoice based on your setup by selecting Create Document.

Manually import invoices

To manually import external e-documents, follow these steps:

  1. Select the Lightbulb that opens the Tell Me feature. icon, enter E-Document Service, and then select the related link.
  2. On the E-Document Service page, select the active service.
  3. Select Receive, and upload the e-document file that you got from the vendor.
  4. If an error message occurs, open the e-document to fix the issues.
  5. When you finish fixing the issues, in the Import Manually group, select Create Document.
  6. After the document is created in Business Central, using a batch job doesn't change the way you view it.

Work with attachments

Peppol and similar e-invoicing files are machine-readable formats and not easy for human reading. To improve this, Peppol made it possible to embed a PDF file into the Peppol BIS 3 format as a binary object. If your incoming Peppol BIS 3 file has an embedded PDF, Business Central will automatically process it and add the PDF as an attachment to the purchase document once it's created.

E-documents with purchase orders

If your Vendor configured the Receive E-Document To field to work with Purchase Orders, once an electronic document is created in Business Central (manually or from external end point), Business Central does the following steps:

  1. If the Purchase Order for this particular vendor exists and there's a purchase order number in the receive E-Document file, Business Central automatically links this E-Document with the mentioned Purchase Order, and the Document Status of this E-Document is set to In Progress, and the E-Document Status in the Service Status subpage is set to Order linked. This link is visible in the Document field on this specific E-Document. If you need to change the Purchase Order linked automatically, you can do it using the Update Purchase Order Link action and select manually one of the existing purchase orders for this vendor. You can do it only before matching the lines between E-Document and Purchase Order.

  2. If the Purchase Order for this particular vendor exists but there's no purchase order number in the received E-Document file, Business Central offers the possibility to choose one of the existing purchase orders when and if you uploaded this document manually. This condition opens the Purchase Orders list with orders only for the vendor from whom you received the E-Document. You need to select the Purchase Order you want and then select OK. If you failed to select the correct Purchase Order, or obtained the E-Document automatically from an external endpoint using the Job Queue, a new E-Document isn't linked to any purchase document. The Document Status then shows Error, and the E-Document Status in the Service Status subpage also shows Imported document processing error. To finish linking with the Purchase Order, select the Update Purchase Order Link action and choose one of the existing purchase orders for this vendor.

  3. If the Purchase Order for this particular vendor doesn't exist when a new E-Document is created, Business Central creates a new Purchase Order, using the same model of creation that already exists for new Purchase Invoices. The Document Status of this E-Document is set to Processed, and the E-Document Status in the Service Status subpage is set to Imported document created. After which, this link is visible in the Document field on this specific E-Document.

Matching lines from received e-document with purchase order

You can match your received electronic documents with purchase orders' lines from two different places: from the E-Document page or from the Purchase Order page. The easiest way to locate the already linked Purchase Orders is to use the Linked Purchase Orders tile as a part of E-Document Activities. All nonlinked documents can be found using the tile Waiting Purchase E-Invoices where you have a list of E-Documents that you need to review. The E-Document Activities with these two tiles can be found in the following Role Centers: Business Manager Evaluation, Business Manager, Accountant, Inventory Manager, and Shipping and Receiving.

Tip

There's also two ways to match lines. One way is to do it manually, as described in the article. The other way is to use the E-document matching assistance with Copilot. The E-document matching assistance feature helps you match received electronic invoices with existing purchase order lines by using large language modules (LLM) model. Learn more about using Copilot in Map e-documents to purchase order lines with Copilot.

Note

If the VAT percentage differs between the incoming document and the company's VAT percentage, matching documents can't be used in a multi-country environment.

Matching lines from purchase order

You can match the lines from the Purchase Orders list or from one of the opened Purchase Orders. To begin process, use the following steps:

  1. Select the Linked Purchase Orders tile on your Role Center if there's any number.

  2. Choose one of the two options for matching:

    • If you want to match the lines from the Purchase Orders list, select the Purchase Order line that you want to match and select the Map E-Document Lines action.
    • If you want to first open the Purchase Order, open the document and then select the Map E-Document Lines action.

  3. Because both options have the same process, the Purchase Order Matching page opens with the following content:

    1. In the header you can find the following information, which can help you to map the lines easier:

      Field name Description
      Vendor Name Specifies the vendor’s name of the electronic document.
      E-Document No. Specifies the linked electronic document number.
      E-Document Date Specifies the linked electronic document date.
      E-Document Amount Specifies the linked e-document total amount including VAT.

    2. In the lines, you can find the lines imported from the E-Document file on the left side and the lines from the existing Purchase Order on the right.

    3. All lines on both sides have item numbers and descriptions, together with the Direct Unit Cost and Line Discount %.

    4. On the Imported Lines side, you can also locate the Quantity field as a total quantity from e-invoice and the Matched Quantity field specifying the quantity that already matched to the purchase order lines.

    5. On the Purchase Orders Lines side, you can also find the Available Quantity as the quantity that can be matched to this line (received, but not invoiced quantity) and Qty. to Invoice, specifying the quantity that is already matched to this line.

    6. To match lines, select the lines on both sides that you want to match and select the Match Manually action. The matched lines are marked in green.

    7. It's possible to match one to one, but it's also possible to match many to one or one to many, selecting more lines on one or another side before choosing the Match Manually action.

    8. You can also select the Match Automatically action to automatically match all lines with the same Type, No., Unit Price, Discount, and Unit of Measure.

    9. If you make a mistake, you can select the Remove Match action to remove the matched lines on the purchase order side or select the Reset Matching action to reset all that match.

    10. If your E-Document has many lines, you can select the Show Pending Lines action during the matching process to remove all the e-document lines if they're already matched. If you need to view all the lines, you can always select the Show All Lines action.

  4. Once you finish the matching, you need to select the Apply To Purchase Order action.

  5. After you apply the matching to the Purchase Order, Business Central will update the following fields:

    1. Vendor Invoice No. and Document Date on the document header are updated with values from the electronic document that you'd received and linked.
    2. Qty. to Invoice in lines are updated with the values from the Qty. to Invoice column from the Purchase Order Matching page based on the match you did.
    3. Now you can post the document by choosing the Post action.
    4. Once you post the document, the Document field on the E-Document page changes value to relate to the Posted Purchase Invoice.
    5. Close the page.

Important

By default, you can match only the lines that have the same total amount in both documents. That means Direct Unit Cost together with the applied Line Discount % must be the same, because in one document you can have an amount without discount and in another with discount.

If you want to add some tolerance and allow the difference between lines in E-invoice and Purchase Order, follow these steps:

  1. Select the Lightbulb that opens the Tell Me feature. icon, enter Purchases & Payables Setup, and then select the related link.
  2. You want to allow tolerance in the E-Document Matching Difference % field, specifying the maximum allowed percentage of cost difference when matching an incoming E-Document line with the Purchase Order line.
  3. This setup applies to all the matching lines, but again considering tolerance for the total amount, as for Direct Unit Cost together with applied Line Discount %.
  4. Close the page.

Matching lines from e-document

You can match the lines on the E-Document page. To begin, use the following steps:

  1. Select the Lightbulb that opens the Tell Me feature. icon, enter E-Documents, and then select the related link.
  2. Select the E-Document that you want to match.
  3. Choose the Match Purchase Order action to open the Purchase Order Matching page.
  4. Repeat the same steps that you used when you started matching from purchase orders.

Overview of e-document statuses

To get a better overview of all e-documents in the company, you can select the Accountant role center where e-document statuses exist. There, you can find e-document activities that have the following statuses:

  • Incoming e-documents:
    • Processed
      • In Progress
      • Error

Set up e-documents
Use e-document in the sales process
Extending e-documents functionality
Financial Management
Invoice sales
Record purchases with purchase invoices and orders
Work with Business Central

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