Introduction - Set up incoming documents
External business documents can come into your company as an email attachment or a paper copy that you scan to file. This practice is typical of purchases, where such incoming document files represent payment receipts for expenses or small purchases.
From PDF or image files that represent incoming documents, you can have an external Optical Character Recognition (OCR) service generate electronic documents that can then be converted to document records inside Business Central.
On the Incoming Documents page, you can use different functions to review expense receipts, manage OCR tasks, and convert incoming document files, manually or automatically, to the relevant documents or journal lines. The external files can be attached at any process stage, including to posted documents and to the resulting vendor, customer, and general ledger entries.
The incoming document process can consist of the following main activities:
Record the external documents inside Business Central by creating lines on the Incoming Documents page in either of the following ways:
Manually, by using simple functions, either from a PC or from a mobile device, in one of the following ways:
Use the Create from File action and then fill relevant fields on the Incoming Documents page. The file is automatically attached.
Use the New action and then fill relevant fields on the Incoming Documents page and manually attach the related file.
From a tablet or phone, use the Create from Camera action to create a new incoming document record, and then send the image to the OCR service, for example.
Automatically, by receiving the document from the OCR service as an electronic document after you have sent the related PDF or image file as an attachment to an email to the OCR service. The Financial Information FastTab is automatically filled on the Incoming Documents page.
Use the OCR service to have PDF or image files turned into electronic documents that can be converted to document records in Business Central.
Create new documents or general journal lines for incoming document records by entering the information as you read it from incoming document files.
Attach incoming document files to purchase and sales documents of any status, including to the vendor, customer, and general ledger entries that result from posting.
View incoming document records and their attachments from any purchase and sales document or entry or find all general ledger entries without incoming document records from the Chart of Accounts page.
To start using the incoming documents feature, you must prepare the following setup:
Select the Search for Page icon in the top-right corner of the page, enter incoming documents setup, and then select the related link.
On the Incoming Documents Setup page, fill in the following fields:
General Journal Template Name and General Journal Batch Name - The journal template and batch to use if you want to create general journal lines from incoming document records.
Require Approval To Create - Select this option if you don't want users to create invoices or general journal lines from incoming document records unless the documents are first approved. Only those users who are set up as approvers on the Incoming Document Approvers page can approve an incoming document.
