Every company has expenses. Some expenses relate to the supply chain. Others relate to operating costs like rent, utilities, leasing, food, phone bills, and software subscriptions. The Payables Agent focuses on operating costs, which are known as overhead expenses. You often receive these expenses as email attachments or through other channels.

Sourcing files and attachments related to purchase of overhead expenses

In the first version, the Payables Agent sources purchase attachments as PDF files from a Microsoft 365 email account where vendors send their invoices. The agent imports these invoice documents into Inbound E-Documents in Business Central for further processing.

Processing imported purchase attachment and files

After you import files, Azure Document Intelligence processes them by using optical character recognition (OCR) technology. The results are stored in Business Central in the e-document. An updated PDF attachment viewer lets you validate the OCR processing by viewing the attachment in a near-full screen.

Creating purchase invoices

When Azure Document Intelligence processes a purchase attachment, the Payables Agent creates a purchase invoice document that you can approve and post. The agent uses various predictors and indicators to create these invoices. These predictors and indicators come from the company's available purchase history and history created while using the Payables Agent. The Payables Agent streamlines the entire flow from identifying and importing purchase attachments, capturing relevant information to categorize the expense, registering the expense correctly in the general ledger, and creating purchase documents.

In the future, the Payables Agent will handle more complex scenarios and match them with open purchase orders. The agent also will support e-invoices received through other channels, like PEPPOL and other access points.