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
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. Configure OCR settings in Administration
Go to Administration > Configuration > Application.
Scroll down to the Purchasing section.
Make sure the Enable OCR Invoice Matching on Purchase Receipts toggle is on. When it’s on, new Purchase Receipts have Invoice Matching (OCR) turned on automatically. Turn it off if you’d rather opt PRs in one at a time.
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 Invoices list, select the Include synced email attachments in OCR queue checkbox.
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.
2. 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. The System Admin and Branch Admin roles have both permissions already. Use the steps below to add them to any other 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.
3. Enable OCR for existing PRs (optional)
When Enable OCR Invoice Matching on Purchase Receipts is on, new PRs automatically have Invoice Matching (OCR) turned on. Changing this setting doesn’t update existing PRs, so you’ll need to turn on OCR for those manually. 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.
Note: To turn OCR off for a group of Purchase Receipts, follow the same steps and select Disable OCR Match instead.
Important: If you disable OCR Match for a PR that was previously matched and confirmed, the PR reverts to unmatched status.
Purchase Receipts with a status other than New or Received 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.
New Purchase Receipts have Invoice Matching (OCR) turned on by default.
To match your first invoice, read our article about matching vendor invoices to purchase receipts with OCR.