For the past few weeks, we have been busy restructuring large parts of our database so that we can implement new functionality faster in the future. This meant that we were not able to add new features during this time as we normally would have. However, we have still added quite some relevant new process optimizations to make our users’ lives just that little bit easier.
Automatic invoice information detection (OCR)
Automatic invoice scanning is one of the most often requested features and has finally been added. When a PDF file is uploaded, we can scan some data points to automatically be assigned to the correct project, subcontractor, or purchase order. The data fields that we can read out from the file are as follows:
- Invoice number
- Invoice date
- Invoice due date
- Subcontractor/supplier name (if the same company name exists in the contact database)
- Purchase order number/name (if an open PO exists with the same number)
- Project code (if the code of only one active project is matched from the file)
If the match is for a purchase order number or a game of a single project code, the file is automatically assigned to the correct project. When it is time to approve the cost, the matched form fields will be populated automatically, so you have less work to do.
If you are interested in testing this feature, please get in touch with us as we only enable it for our current customers who request it.
Manual invoice information preparation
Since we already built most of the logic to assign the project, invoice dates, and subcontractors, we also decided to allow a manual way to assign this info. This means that when assigning a file from the company files to a specific project, you can manually add all of the missing fields that the OCR system might not have detected. If you do not enable OCR, you can assign any file with additional information to the project.
This can make sense if your company workflow is set up so that your secretary or office manager distributes the invoices between projects. The project managers or quantity surveyors would have to do less data entry since the invoice came to them with all of the relevant information provided already.
Automatic Purchase Order numbering
It has already been quite some time since we released our purchase order management toolkit. We aren’t finished with adding features to automate the workflows there. Many of our customers who run a lot of purchase orders reached out to us and said they need a way to generate unique purchase order numbers to make delivery tracking easier. This also ties into our OCR task very nicely since we are now automatically reading out the PO numbers from the invoices.
This means that every new purchase order will have a new ID assigned to it. This ensures that you can easily send out POs with unique identifiers to make your life easier when you receive the bills. For the feature to work, you must have a unique code assigned to the project (DEMO001 in the image above).
If you are interested in testing this feature, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We are only enabling it for our current customers who request it.
Improved Change Order management
Many of our users found it annoying to have to go back to the budget view to be able to add new budget items for their change orders. This means you have yet a few more clicks that you can avoid when approving progress reports from your subcontractors.
In addition to adding budget line items from the change order screen, we have also added the possibility of adding sub rows to change orders in progress reports. This will also allow you to keep track of change orders more granularly, just like you can with the contract lines that were in the contract from the beginning.
Both of these features are available for all of our users and do not need to be enabled from our side.
Improved Xero integration for invoices
Since we now read the invoice information from the file both automatically and allow our users to manually input it, we also forward it to our accounting integrations. One of them is Xero, where we now send the invoice date, the invoice due date, the invoice number, and all of the details from the purchase order as a comment.
We will also very shortly be adding a way to configure tracking categories in Planyard and automatically have them sent to Xero so that you do not have to manually change them for every invoice sent to Xero. We will be announcing this in the coming weeks, so keep your eyes open for that!