Fine-tune your AP automation experience in iCompleat with customisable events

In Events you can configure what action iCompleat should take at various stages during the lifecycle of orders, invoices, and credit notes.

This includes configuring the email alerts that certain types of users receive when a transaction requires their approval, and the ability to create powerful custom rules that come into play when a new invoice is received. You can also tell iCompleat where to send approved purchase orders for each supplier.

The tables below show which actions you can configure for each event. You can find guidance on how to configure them further down this article.

 

Invoices and credit notes

 

Orders

 

Access Events

You need to be an iCompleat administrator to access Events.

 

1. On the iCompleat homepage, click Configuration.
2. Click Events.

 

Email alerts

You can manage the email alerts that transaction owners, AP operators, and approvers receive when the following events occur:

• A transaction has been denied (email transaction owners/AP operators)
• A transaction has been fully approved (email transaction owners/AP operators)
• A transaction requires approval by a group in a workflow (email approvers)
• A transaction has been received by the system (email operators when a transaction is auto submitted to workflow OR email alerts to operators when a transaction cannot be auto submitted to workflow)

When you've selected the relevant transaction type and event from the drop-downs, you'll see one of the following options in the left-hand menu:

• Email the transaction owner/operator
• Email approvers
• Automatically approve or submit, if possible

Select the menu option, then turn on the toggle as required, like in the example below.

 

 

Sending orders to suppliers

You can choose a default setting at company level for the automatic sending of orders to suppliers in Company > Ordering. 

There are also a couple of ways you can enable or disable the automatic sending of approve orders on a supplier by supplier basis:

• In Suppliers > Supplier Configuration, or
• In Events, under Invoices and credit notes > A transaction has been received by the system

Both of the above settings will override the company default setting on an individual supplier basis. You don't need to go into both Suppliers and Events to update the setting for an individual supplier. If you change the setting in one area, this will be reflected in the other. Any changes you make will not affect the company default setting for any other suppliers.

In Events you can also choose whether iCompleat will send fully approved orders to the email address saved against a supplier in your finance system or reference data, or choose to use a different email address.

If you shop with Amazon Business using Integrated Online Buying, you can use this setting to tell iCompleat to automatically submit approved orders to Amazon Business.

To activate or deactivate the automatic sending of approved purchased orders to an individual supplier, follow these steps in Events.

 

1. From the What type of transaction drop-down, select Orders.
2. From the What event do you want to manage? drop-down, select A transaction has been fully approved.
3. In the left-hand menu, select Send transaction to the supplier.
4. Select a supplier from the drop-down.
5. (Amazon Business only) If you're using Amazon Business with Integrated Online Buying and would like fully approved orders in iCompleat to submitted automatically to Amazon, you can switch on the Send purchase order to the supplier electronically toggle.
6. Switch the Send purchase order PDF to this supplier toggle on or off as required.
7. If you switched the toggle off, click Save to finish.

   If you switched it on, continue to the next step.

   If you switched the toggle off and you're not using Integrated Online Buying you'll need to manually download fully approved order PDFs and email them to the supplier outside of iCompleat.

   
8. Switch the Email Address toggle on if you want iCompleat to send PDFs of fully approved purchase orders to the email address saved against the supplier in your reference data or finance system.

   If you switch the toggle on, iCompleat will display and use the email address saved against the supplier in your finance system or reference data.

   Or, switch the toggle off if you want to enter an alternative email address you'd like fully approved orders to be emailed to.

9. Click Save to finish.

 

Auto approving matched invoices

You can tell iCompleat to automatically approve all invoices that arrive and fully match to an order.

With this event switched on, all invoices that arrive in iCompleat and are fully matched to an order will be automatically approved and go straight to the Approved tray, skipping the workflow process.

This event only works for invoices that are automatically matched to orders when they arrive in iCompleat. It won't work if you have to manually match an invoice to an order.

Follow these steps to switch on automatic approval for fully matched invoices in Events.

 

1. Select Invoices and credit notes from the What type of transaction drop-down.
2. Select A transaction has been received by the system from the What event do you want to manage? drop-down.
3. Go to Automatically approve or submit, if possible in the left-hand menu.
4. Switch on the Automatically approve transaction when fully matched to an order toggle.

   Your changes are saved automatically.

   

 

Creating custom rules

In Events you can create custom rules that come into effect when the follow events occur:

• An invoice or credit note has been received
• An order has been created

Custom rules let you automate invoice and order coding with greater precision. For instance, you might create a custom rule so that all newly received invoices with an item description containing the word 'computer' are coded to the account code 'Software'. Or, you might create a custom rule so that all orders with line items under a certain cost threshold are coded to a particular department.

The possibilities for creating custom rules are endless, but the process of setting them up is always similar.

Here's an example of how to create a simple custom rule telling iCompleat to code an invoice line to a specific account code when a particular keyword appears in the line description.

 

1. From the What type of transaction drop-down, select Invoices and credit notes
2. From the What event do you want to manage? drop-down, select A transaction has been received by the system.
3. Go to Apply custom rules to this transaction from the left-hand menu.
4. Click Add a rule set.
5. Enter a Name for the rule.
6. To set a condition for the rule, select Add.
7. Select a field to apply the condition to from the drop-down.

   The drop-down menu is split between line and header fields.

   In this scenario, we need to choose the field Item description which is a line level field.

8. From the drop-down, select the type of condition to apply.

   In this scenario, we're selecting contains.

9. Enter the value to compare the field to. In this scenario, we want iCompleat to apply the rule to item descriptions containing the value computer.

   You can click Add to create multiple conditions that will follow the same rule.

   
10. Click OK.
11. Select whether iCompleat will apply the rule if all of, or any of, the conditions are met.

    As we're only setting one condition in this scenario, we're selecting all of.

    However, you might sometimes create multiple conditions so that iCompleat will take action if any of those conditions are met.

    
12. To set the action that will be taken when the condition is met, click Add.
13. From the drop-down, select the field that iCompleat will apply the action to.

    In this scenario, we want iCompleat to apply a specific Account Code when the condition is met.

14. From the drop-down, select the value to apply to the field when the condition is met.

    In this scenario, we want iCompleat to apply the account code "Computers & Software" to the invoice.

    
15. Click OK.
16. From the drop-down, select where iCompleat will perform these actions.

    In this scenario, we want the account code to be applied to any line that contains the word 'computer', so we're selecting to any line that matches the conditions.

    
17. Your rule is almost ready...
18. Switch the Active toggle On so that the rule will come into play instantly.

    Switch the toggle Off if you don't want iCompleat to use the rule just yet. You can edit the rule and change this at any time.

    
19. Click Save.`
20. Your custom rule is created!

    The custom rules main page appears, with your new rule listed.

    

 

Duplicating a custom rule

If you have a useful custom rule that you'd like to use for a slightly different purpose, you can duplicate it and customise the new rule to meet your needs.

For instance, in the scenario above, we created a custom rule so that iCompleat will code all invoice lines containing the keyword 'computer' to the account code 'Software'. We want to duplicate the rule so that iCompleat will apply the same logic when an invoice line contains the keyword 'mouse'. This is quick and easy to do - just follow the steps below.

 

1. In the custom rules page in Events, select the rule you'd like to duplicate from the list.
2. In the bottom-right, click Duplicate.
3. The rule Name is automatically generated, but you can edit this if you like.
4. Edit the relevant fields so that the new rule is unique. We're setting the value to compare the field to as mouse.

   iCompleat won't let you save an identical custom rule.

   
5. Switch the Active toggle On so that the rule will come into play instantly.

   Switch the toggle Off if you don't want iCompleat to use the rule just yet. You can edit the rule and change this at any time.

6. Click Save.
7. Your duplicate custom rule is created!

   The custom rules main page appears, with your new rule listed.

 

 Still got questions? Comment below and let us know how we can improve this article.