Scanning purchase invoices

Summary

Send a supplier invoice in by email, drag-drop, or phone camera and Torqueflow extracts the supplier, document number, dates, totals, and line items for you. You review what was extracted on a side-by-side review screen, fix anything wrong in seconds, and click Confirm to create the purchase invoice. Suppliers and parts can be created inline from the same screen if they are not already in your records.

This guide covers all three intake methods, the review screen, the line-matching workflow, and what to do when something goes wrong.

Prerequisites

• At least one scan address has been created. See “Scan Addresses”.
• You have the finance.purchases.scan_review permission to open the inbox and review screens. The Owner, Manager, and Service Advisor roles have this by default.
• To confirm a scan (write a purchase invoice), you also need finance.purchases.scan_confirm. Owner and Manager have this. Service Advisor does not — they can review and discard, but not confirm.
• To retry a failed extraction, you must be Owner or Manager.
• Currently GBP only. Non-GBP invoices cannot be confirmed.

Steps

Send a scan in (three ways)

By email - Forward or send directly to one of your scan addresses (<token>@scan.torqueflow.app). Each attachment is a separate scan. PDF, JPG, PNG, WebP, and HEIC (iPhone) up to 50 MB are accepted.

By desktop upload -

1. Go to Finance → Purchases → Scan Inbox.
2. Click Upload Scan in the top right.
3. On the Upload tab, drag a file in or click to pick. Multi-page PDFs are fine.
4. Optionally pick the document type hint (Auto-detect, Purchase invoice, or Delivery note).
5. Click Upload. The dialog closes and Torqueflow takes you to the review screen as soon as extraction is ready.

By phone camera -

6. On a phone, tap Upload Scan then switch to the Take a photo tab.
7. Tap the camera button. Your phone camera opens.
8. Take the photo of the invoice. One photo per scan. For multi-page invoices, use Upload from a desktop instead — phone multi-page support is not yet available.
9. Optionally pick a document type hint.
10. Tap Upload.

Track scans in the inbox

The inbox at Finance → Purchases → Scan Inbox shows tabs:

• Pending - waiting for review.
• Confirmed - you have already created a purchase invoice from this scan.
• Failed - extraction did not work.
• Duplicate - matches an earlier scan.
• All.

Each row shows:

• The status badge: Processing… (waiting for the AI), Ready to review (extraction done), Confirmed, Failed, Duplicate.
• The supplier the scan thinks it is from.
• The supplier’s invoice number.
• Net and gross totals.
• The source: an icon for Email (with the sender’s address on hover), Upload, or Camera.
• A Review action and a Discard action.

Most scans go from Processing… to Ready to review in 5-15 seconds.

Review and confirm a scan

1. Click Review on a row.
2. The review screen splits into a source preview on the left (the original PDF or photo) and a form on the right. On phones, the form comes first with a View original link.
3. The top of the form tells you where the scan came from (“Received from supplier@…”, “Uploaded by Steve”, or “Captured by Chloe”).
4. Pick the supplier. The supplier picker groups results into:
   • Matched (green) — the AI is confident this is your existing supplier.
   • Likely (amber) — probably the right supplier; double-check.
   • Unmatched (grey) — search results plus an Add new supplier button.
5. If the supplier is not in your records, click Add new supplier, fill in the name, choose VAT-registered Yes/No, add the VAT number if registered, and save. The supplier is created immediately and selected for this scan.
6. Check the header fields — supplier document number, document date, due date, document type (Invoice / Credit note / Proforma), nominal code (required), optional work-order link, optional notes.
7. Review the lines. Each line has its own match badge:
   • Matched (green) — the part is in your catalog. Click Change if it is wrong.
   • Likely (amber) — probable catalog match. These are accepted automatically when you confirm, so you do not have to click each one. If a line looks wrong, click Review to flag it (flagged lines block Confirm) and then Pick different or Accept.
   • Unmatched (grey) — not in your catalog. Click Pick from catalog to search, or Add to catalog to add the part to your catalog right now (the part is created immediately and the line flips to matched).
8. Edit any line field that the AI got wrong: part number, description, quantity, unit price, line net. The line net is calculated automatically; if you override it, a small warning chip shows.
9. Skip lines that are not parts by toggling the line off (e.g. a non-itemised admin charge you do not want as a separate line). Or use Skip catalog matching for all lines at the top of the lines section if the whole invoice is utility / rent / tools that have nothing to do with your parts catalog.
10. Click Confirm. The button label tells you exactly what is about to happen: for example “Confirm 8 matched, 3 likely (accepted as-is)”. Lines you flagged must be resolved first — the button changes to “Resolve 2 flagged lines before confirming”.
11. After confirm, the scan is moved to the Confirmed tab and a purchase invoice appears in the standard purchase-invoices list.

Discard a bad scan

1. From the inbox or the review screen, click Discard.
2. Enter a short reason (1-500 characters) — for example “Stray page from a multi-doc PDF” or “Not a purchase invoice”.
3. Confirm.

The scan is moved to Failed with your reason in the audit log. Service advisors can discard noise even though they cannot confirm.

Retry a failed scan

If the extraction failed, the review screen shows an Extraction failed banner. Owners and managers see a Retry button on the banner — clicking it re-runs extraction. Service advisors see a banner that asks them to find an owner or manager.

Expected Outcome

The scan moves from Pending to Confirmed in the inbox. A purchase invoice appears in Finance → Purchases with the supplier, document number, dates, totals, and lines populated. New parts you added to the catalog show in Settings → Parts → Catalog. New suppliers you added inline show in Settings → Suppliers.

Banners and edge cases

You may see one of these banners on the review screen.

Non-GBP invoice — “This is a EUR invoice. Non-GBP invoices aren’t supported yet. Discard this scan and re-upload as GBP.” The Confirm button is disabled. Click Discard and ask the supplier for a GBP version.

Trade-counter receipt — “This is a trade-counter receipt (parts collection). The same scan is also in the Delivery Note Inbox so you can record physical arrival and stock updates separately.” Confirm here posts the financial side (the purchase invoice). The matching goods-receipt confirm in the Delivery Note Inbox handles stock + work-order allocation. The two confirms are independent. See Scanning delivery notes.

Duplicate — “This scan matches an earlier scan. Review the original to avoid double-booking the invoice.” Click View original to compare. Click Discard this scan if the duplicate is the bad one. There is currently no “this is not a duplicate, force it through” option — contact support if you genuinely have two distinct invoices that look the same to the AI.

Extraction failed — owners and managers can click Retry. If retry fails repeatedly, the AI cannot read the file. Discard and re-upload a clearer scan, or enter the invoice manually via the standard purchase-invoices flow.

Supplier is not VAT registered — appears as soon as you pick a supplier marked not-registered. The Confirm button is disabled until every line’s tax is set to 0. There is a one-click Zero out all tax action to do this for you.

Credit note linking required — when you set the document type to Credit note, an Original invoice picker appears. Pick the original purchase invoice this credit note relates to. Confirm is disabled until you pick one.

Processing… — the scan is still being extracted. The page auto-refreshes every 3 seconds for up to 15 seconds. After that, click Refresh to check.

Notes

• The “Likely” match colour means good-but-not-certain. The system accepts these on confirm by default to keep big invoices fast. Flag a line with Review if you want to block it from confirm and inspect it manually.
• “Skipped” lines are excluded from the purchase invoice — they appear nowhere in the totals and are not posted.
• Surcharge lines (core charges, delivery, restocking fees) are shown indented under their parent charge and labelled with a chip. They post to the same purchase invoice.
• Each scan stores how it arrived (email, upload, camera) and who handled it. You can audit this from the review screen header.

Troubleshooting

Problem: Status is stuck on “Processing…” for more than a couple of minutes. Cause: Either an unusually busy queue or extraction has stalled. Fix: Refresh the page. If it does not move within 5 minutes, ask an Owner or Manager to retry from the review screen, or discard and re-upload.

Problem: Confirm button greyed out and I cannot find why. Cause: A line is flagged for review, the supplier is not VAT registered but a line still has tax, or you set document type to Credit Note without linking an original invoice. Fix: Read the Confirm button label — it tells you what to do. Check for amber Review flags on lines. Check the supplier banner. Check the credit-note picker.

Problem: Supplier picker shows three “John Smith Motor Factors” entries. Cause: Duplicate suppliers in your records. Fix: Pick the right one for now and confirm the invoice. Then use the supplier merge tool (see “Merging duplicate suppliers” if available, or contact support) to clean up duplicates.

Problem: A few lines came in with wrong prices. Cause: OCR of small or skewed images sometimes drops a digit or misreads a decimal. Fix: Edit the line directly in the review screen. The line net recalculates as you change qty or unit price. The original scan is preserved on the left so you can verify.

Problem: “Extraction is corrupt — discard and re-upload”. Cause: The AI returned output that the system could not parse. Usually a very low-quality scan. Fix: Discard and re-upload a clearer file. PDFs from supplier portals usually beat phone photos for messy invoices.

Problem: I confirmed but the purchase invoice is missing a line. Cause: That line was probably toggled off (Skipped). Fix: Open the saved purchase invoice and add the line manually, or discard the scan, re-upload, and review again.

Permissions

• finance.purchases.scan_review to view the inbox and open scans (read-only). Held by Owner, Manager, and Service Advisor.
• finance.purchases.scan_confirm to confirm a scan into a purchase invoice, retry failures, or create suppliers inline. Held by Owner and Manager.
• parts.manage_catalog to add a part to the catalog from a scan line. Held by Owner and Manager.