Suppliers (vendors) are the users that supply your company with goods, services, items.
The source of truth for supplier data should always be the supplier master data in your company’s ERP system. Therefore, it is not possible to manually create new suppliers or edit supplier data in Perk.
Uploading suppliers
In Perk, you can upload supplier data from your ERP system:
- automatically via API
- automatically via SFTP using the standard supplier import file
- manually by uploading a standard Perk supplier import file.
When integrating Perk with your company’s finance system, you are recommended to implement an automatic mechanism, as it will guarantee that you have crucial supplier data such as bank details always up to date in all systems.
Viewing supplier data
Only invoice processors with Supplier data permissions can view supplier data.
You can view details for all imported suppliers by going to Invoices > Invoice Processor > Suppliers.
To search for specific suppliers in the overview, use the search bar at the top of the window and type in the supplier’s name. To specify your search, you may also use other filter options such as the legal entity that the supplier is associated with and the status of the supplier (active, inactive or draft).
To view specific details for a supplier, click on the supplier. The Supplier details screen includes three tabs:
Supplier details
The Supplier details tab contains basic information about the supplier.
- Supplier name
- Contact details
- ERP ID
- Tax number
- Bank information
- Address
Invoices
The Invoices tab contains a list of all invoices for the supplier processed in Perk, including the current status of the invoice.
Supplier settings
The Supplier settings tab determines the default settings for the supplier, including business logic on how invoices are matched with that supplier.
Default cost object
Determines the cost object to be used for all invoices from this supplier. Invoice processors can override this setting, if required, by selecting a different cost object when processing the line items of the invoice.
Default category
Determines the category to be used for all invoices from this supplier. Invoice processors can override this setting, if required, by selecting a different category when processing the line items of the invoice.
Default payment terms
Determines the payment terms to be used for all invoices from this supplier. Invoice processors can override this setting, if required, by selecting a different payment term in the invoice header when processing the invoice.
Approver
Determines the default approver for all invoices from this supplier. This setting may be ignored if the workflow determines a different approval flow.
Coding type
Determines how invoices from this supplier should be processed.
- smart coding: If selected, Perk tries to smart code all invoices for the supplier.
- default supplier coding: If selected, Perk picks the default cost object and category that you have set up in the supplier settings.
- adopt entity coding: If this option is selected, Perk follows whatever coding logic is determined for the company.
For new invoices of new suppliers that Perk has never seen, Perk does not perform smart coding, automatically coding the cost object and category. This is because Perk first needs to learn what has been used in the past before it can apply smart coding on an invoice. In contrast, for invoices of suppliers that have been already submitted into the workflow, Perk tries to populate all the cost objects and categories fields of the line items, suggesting a possible coding.
The supplier coding type always overrides the default behavior for the legal entity. For example, if you have selected smart coding for the legal entity, but the supplier settings contains the coding type default supplier coding, then the default cost object and categories are taken for all invoices associated with that supplier.
If you do not specify a coding type for the supplier, the coding type is determined by either the default category/cost object for the supplier and the legal entity settings.
Simplified line items
Use simplified line items for this supplier.
For invoices with multiple line items, you can reduce complexity if not required by merging all information into a single line item. Perk can collapse line items per tax code to remove unnecessary line item detail.
- On invoice level (within an invoice report): For example, if two or multiple line items belong to the same tax rate, then you don’t need to book all of the line items separately, but you can select the respective line items in the invoice report and click Aggregate line items.
- On supplier level (within the supplier settings): If all line items of a specific supplier always belong to the same tax rate, activate the button in these settings.
- On whole entity level (in the company settings): The activation of the line item simplification on this level applies to all suppliers across a legal entity and is used when line items are generally not booked for this legal entity. This can only be activated by an Admin user.
Caution: If you plan to use automatic PO matching for invoices, you cannot enable simplified line items, as Perk is unable to match the invoice line item against the PO line items (unless there is a 1-to-1 relationship).
Matching settings
Determines the matching settings used for the supplier.
Intercompany suppliers
Many organizations have multiple legal entities that need to invoice one another. For example, Company CH invoices Company AU for goods that have been shipped to Australia from Switzerland.
You can flag these suppliers as Intercompany suppliers in Perk, for the legal entity Company AU, the supplier Company CH is considered an intercompany supplier.
Hence, Perk AI understand that such supplier is a “special case” and treats it accordingly.
Matching keywords
Supplier recognition in Perk is one of the most important and powerful features. Without supplier recognition, most of the things in Invoice processing do not work properly, included the default categories and cost objects.
Hence, you can improve the supplier recognition on invoices by adding custom keywords in the matching keywords section.
For example, you regularly receive invoices from a specific supplier. Supplier master data is of low quality, which means Perk has issues in automatically recognizing the supplier when an invoice comes in. The supplier invoice always has some recurring keywords such as VAT number, address, etc. By inputing such data fields as keywords, you improve the recognition of the supplier. In this sense, the next time an invoice from that supplier comes in, Perk matches it directly with the supplier.
Caution: A keyword must have at least 6 characters. If you add more keywords, you need to separate them with a comma.