Overview
Vendor Invoice OCR uses Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to scan invoice PDFs and match them to Purchase Receipts. This article walks you through enabling the feature, assigning the right permissions, and setting up email sync so invoices can flow into Aspire automatically. Read our Introduction to Vendor Invoice OCR for an overview of how the feature works.
Things to know
If Invoice OCR isn’t active, related settings and tabs won’t appear in your system.
Emails set up to sync PDFs to the OCR Invoices list are synced every 30 seconds.
Requirements
To assign the two OCR permissions, you must be a System Administrator.
To enable OCR for existing PRs, you need the View Purchasing permission added to your user role.
Steps
1. Contact Aspire to enable OCR
Contact your Aspire CSM or AspireCare to enable Vendor Invoice OCR for your system.
2. Enable OCR and configure settings in Administration
Go to Administration > Configuration > Application.
Scroll down to the Purchasing section.
Activate the Enable OCR Invoice Matching on Purchase Receipts toggle to enable it for your system.
Note
The Require Unique Vendor Invoice Number setting doesn’t affect OCR invoice matching.
If you want to automatically add PDFs from emails synced with Aspire to the OCR Invoice list, check the Include synced email attachments in OCR queue.
In the Approved OCR Users field that appears, select the people whose synced email attachments should automatically be added to the OCR Invoices list.
Double-check that the users you select have successfully set up email syncing to Aspire. For setup details, read our article about Syncing Your Email and Calendar to Aspire.
Tip
Set up a dedicated invoice inbox where all the vendors you work with send their invoices (for example, "invoices@yourcompany.com") and sync it to Aspire as you would any other user email account.
Select Save.
3. Assign OCR permissions
Staff members who need to upload invoices or approve OCR matches must have at least one of two permissions assigned to their user role.
Go to Administration > User Management > User Roles.
Use the dropdown to select the role you want to update.
Expand the Purchasing section.
Select Upload Invoice to OCR if the role should let users upload invoices and run rescans.
Select Edit PRs in Match Review Status if the role should let users edit and confirm Purchase Receipts that are in Match Review status.
Select Save.
Repeat steps 2 through 6 for each role that needs access.
Note
Users without these permissions can still view the OCR Invoices page if they have general Purchasing access, but they can't upload invoices or view the OCR matching page.
4. Enable OCR for existing PRs (optional)
After Vendor Invoice OCR is enabled for your system, all new PRs automatically have Invoice OCR enabled. PRs that existed before OCR was enabled must have OCR manually activated. You can do this in one of two ways.
Enable OCR for a single PR
Go to Purchasing > Purchase Receipts.
Select a PR.
Enable the Invoice Matching (OCR) toggle.
Select Save.
Bulk enable or disable OCR
Go to Purchasing > Purchase Receipts.
Check the box to the left of each PR you want to enable OCR for.
Select the Bulk Actions dropdown, and select Enable OCR Match. The OCR Match column for those invoices changes to Enabled.
If you want to disable OCR for any PRs, repeat these steps, instead selecting Disable OCR Match on step 3.
Important
If you disable OCR Match for a PR that was previously matched and confirmed, the PR reverts to unmatched status.
If you selected PRs with statuses other than New or Received, those are skipped and an “Item not eligible for OCR” message displays.
What happens next
After you complete the steps above:
Users with OCR permissions can access the OCR Invoices sub-tab under Purchasing > Purchase Receipts and can begin uploading invoices.
If you configured email sync, PDF attachments arriving at the synced inbox automatically appear in the OCR Invoices list and begin scanning.
A new OCR Match column appears on the Purchase Receipt list, and a new OCR Match setting appears on each Purchase Receipt's details. New Purchase Receipts have OCR Match turned on by default.
To match your first invoice, read our article about matching vendor invoices to purchase receipts with OCR.