Duplicate Check for Invoices/Bills
A full guide on AutoEntry's Duplicate Check process for Invoices/Bills.
Emma Carroll avatar
Written by Emma Carroll
Updated over a week ago

AutoEntry has a 3 stage duplicate check to catch any duplicate invoices before they're published to your accounting software. Each of these steps are designed to catch any duplicate invoices before syncing to your accounting software.

This guide will give you an overview of our duplicate check process, however if you need information on an instance where AutoEntry did not detect duplicate invoices, please click here.

At what points does AutoEntry scan invoices/bills for duplicates?

We automatically check your invoices at three points. Click on any of the below headings to be brought to that section:

For individual invoices, where the uploaded file has not been received before, the following fields are used to verify if an invoice is a duplicate or not:

  • Supplier/Vendor Name

  • Invoice Number

  • Invoice Date

  • Gross Total

Duplicate invoices are shown either in the Activity page, Rejected folder or with a warning sign in the inbox, depending on what stage of the process they were caught as a duplicate at.

Duplicates caught at the point of upload

When a duplicate invoice/bill is caught at the point of upload, you will see the message 'File already uploaded - Process anyway' displayed under the File Status column of your Activity feed.

Once a file is uploaded, AutoEntry compares it to files previously uploaded to that company. If the file matches, it is cancelled and the File Status will appear as above. No credits have been used at this point as the file has not been sent for processing.

If you believe this is in error, and the file has not been uploaded before, there is the option to Process it anyway by clicking on the blue text.

Clicking on Process anyway will lead you to the following pop-up to confirm that you want to process the file and ignore the duplicate check done by AutoEntry. Processing will then begin for that file.

Please note

Any individual invoices that have already been processed from the previous upload will be individually rejected as duplicates, so if the invoices do not appear in your Inbox they are likely in your Rejected folder. It still costs a credit to process items (invoices/bills/receipts/credit notes) even if they are rejected.

Duplicates caught during the extraction process

AutoEntry will recognise duplicates of individual invoices/bills during processing as the second stage of the duplicate check.

Where the supplier name, invoice date, invoice number and gross amount match a document previously uploaded, the document will be marked as a duplicate and subsequently rejected. You can find these invoices in your rejected folder with a notice stating that it was a duplicate invoice.

You can click View on the left-hand side to view the invoice image. You can also override the duplicate check and force the invoice through to your Inbox by clicking the Move to Inbox button on the right.

The Activity Page will also display the document as rejected.

As the full extraction and verification are attempted before an invoice can be confirmed as a duplicate, any rejected invoices/bills consume a credit as normal.

Duplicates caught when publishing the invoice to your accounting software

When publishing an invoice to your accounting software, AutoEntry does a final check to confirm if it already exists in the software. It could be the case that the invoice was previously entered manually by a colleague, or entered before you started using AutoEntry.

If an invoice with the same supplier name, invoice date, invoice number and gross amount matching exactly already exists in your accounting software, a red warning icon with an error message is displayed beside the invoice in your Inbox (click the warning icon to view the message). This message will differ depending on what accounting software you are integrated with.

Once you are viewing the error message, the option to override the duplicate warning is available. To force the invoice through to your software, simply select the option to Add the invoice anyway and it will be published.

It is advisable to check your accounting software for the matching invoice data in this instance however. If you do this and can find the duplicate, you can select the option to Reject the invoice.

Why did AutoEntry not detect duplicate invoices?

The auto-detection of duplicate invoices sent to AutoEntry works when a supplier name, invoice date, invoice number and gross amount all match.

Auto-detection can fail if the two invoices are captured with slightly different supplier names e.g Test Ltd Agency and Test Ltd.

AutoEntry may also not detect a duplicate if two of the same invoice have been uploaded in the same file. This is due to them being processed at the same time, so a duplicate would not exist in our system already.

Even if duplicate invoices are released in AutoEntry, this does not mean a duplicate will be entered into your accounting software. We do further checks on the supplier code when you click on the publish button, as outlined in the previous section of this guide.

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Last edited:

Apr 27, 2023, 07:00 AM

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