AP Automation & Bill Capture

AP Automation connects capture, approval, and payment in one flow — email, upload, or manual entry; AI extraction; tiered approval by amount and contract match; then payment posting. Vendor contracts, the approval queue, and approval policies require the AP Automation add-on (or a firm plan that bundles it).

Key capabilities

• Email-to-bill capture: forward an invoice and AI extracts vendor, amount, due date, and line items into a draft in the Bill Inbox
• Bill request links: send a vendor a link where they upload their own invoice; it lands as a draft for you to confirm
• Bulk Upload AI extraction for PDFs, images, Excel, CSV, or pasted text, with fuzzy vendor and ledger auto-matching
• Vendor directory shared across bills, contracts, credits, POs, and inventory
• Vendor contracts that stamp each bill with a contract-match signal
• Approval routing by vendor, amount, and contract match (auto-approve, operations, advisor + owner)
• AI risk scoring in the Approvals queue
• Bank-transaction payment matching with confidence scoring and split payments; payment holds that block payment until released
• Pay plan tab that ranks open bills by what to pay first, sized to the cash in your bank
• AP Aging by vendor (Current, 1-30, 31-60, 61-90, 91+) and total-due metrics
• Source document and original email retained on every bill for the audit trail
• Full audit log of approvals, rejections, and workflow events

How it works

Capture, approval, and payment chain together; each bill keeps its original document and posts to AP along the way.

flowchart LR
  arrive["Arrive (email / upload / manual)"] --> capture["AI capture -> draft"]
  capture --> clean["Review & clean up"]
  clean --> gate{"Approval enabled?"}
  gate -->|"No (default)"| received["Received (posted to AP)"]
  gate -->|"Yes"| approve["Pending Approval -> routing"]
  approve --> received
  received --> pay["Match & pay"]

How to use it

1. Forward vendor invoices to your business mailbox (see AP Emails), or use Create Bill or Bulk Upload on Bills.
2. Review the AI-extracted draft in the Bill Inbox, set the vendor and expense account, and click Create bill.
3. With approval off (the default), a bill created from the inbox posts straight to Received. With approval on, it enters Pending Approval and you work it from Approvals (see AP Approval Workflow). Drafts made elsewhere use Send for Approval.
4. Keep Vendor Contracts current so bills are compared to the right terms.
5. Use Auto-match or Record Payment on Bills to link the bank transaction; the entry posts and the bill closes.
6. Use the Pay plan and AP Aging tabs on Bills to stay ahead of due dates.

Pro tips

• Pair email capture with approval thresholds so low-risk, in-contract bills auto-approve and only exceptions reach a human.
• Contract match status drives routing — only Matched bills can auto-approve, so keep contracts current.
• Open Pay plan on Bills before a pay run: it lists what is late, what earns an early-pay discount, and what is due within 7 days, and pre-selects what fits your cash.
• Use payment matching to auto-link bank transactions to open bills instead of recording payments by hand.
• The AP Automation add-on unlocks vendor contracts, Approvals, and Approval Policies — capture and basic bill entry work without it.
• Forward invoices to your business mailbox before month-end so AI capture and approval routing stay ahead of due dates.

In-depth guide

The pieces and how they connect

Capture paths

Bills enter several ways, and AI capture pre-matches what it can:

• Email inbox — forward an invoice to your business mailbox; DayZero extracts it in the background. The inbox also detects invoices, purchase orders, vendors, and customers.
• Bulk Upload — upload PDFs, images, Excel, CSV, or pasted text for AI extraction, or import a CSV with the template.
• Bill request links — created from the Vendors page; vendors submit a PDF or image (up to 10 MB) and it arrives as a draft, flagged when it looks like a duplicate.
• Create Bill and Upload Expense — direct entry.

AI capture fuzzy-matches vendor and expense ledger from extracted bill data; low-confidence matches stay in review for you to confirm.

Approval routing & risk

Approval is opt-in per business and off by default. When it's on, a draft is sent with Send for Approval (or created from the inbox) — the bill moves to Pending Approval (out of the ledger). A vendor's approval route, if any, applies first; otherwise DayZero routes by amount and contract match:

• At/under the auto-approve limit with a Matched contract — approves automatically.
• Up to the Ops limit — goes to Operations.
• Anything else (over the Ops limit, or a small bill whose contract is not Matched) — goes to Advisor, then Owner.

The bill posts its journal entry (moving to Received) only once approved; a rejection cancels it. With approval off, the cleaned-up bill posts to Received directly. AI risk scoring (0-100 with up to three factors) helps triage. Full details live in AP Approval Workflow.

Accounting impact (double-entry)

• Received bill — Debit Expense / Credit Accounts Payable.
• Payment — Debit Accounts Payable / Credit Cash.
• Vendor credits — reduce the net balance due.
• Journal entries require the ledger integration to be enabled.

Add-on & availability

• AP Automation add-on — covers vendor contracts, the Approvals queue, and Approval Policies; bundled into the Firm Enterprise tier and open during a trial.
• Bill approval workflow toggle — turned on or off per business (off by default) on Approval Policies. With it off, inbox bills post straight to Received; with it on, bills wait in Pending Approval until signed off.

Edge cases

• Bills can be created without a vendor, but contract match and approval assignment only run once a vendor is set.
• Duplicate inbound emails are skipped so the same invoice isn't captured twice.
• Turning the workflow on does not touch bills already posted; it affects bills created from the inbox or sent for approval afterward.
• Bills on payment hold are left out of the Pay plan and refuse payment until you release the hold.