Invoice categories

Only account admins can perform this task.

Invoice categories are the equivalent of what is called GL accounts (General Ledger accounts) in finance systems.

Caution: Invoice categories are mandatory for an invoice to be submitted. If a line item does not include a category, it cannot be submitted.

You can create invoice categories manually, via API or import them using a CSV file. The CSV format allows you to import all the fields that you see on the category, including custom fields, so you can easily change everything via file.

Set up invoice categories

To import or create categories for invoices, go to Settings > Supplier invoices > Invoice categories.

 

You can create categories in three ways:

  1. File import
  2. Manual creation
  3. API call to the /invoice-category endpoint

Import invoice categories

Click Import file in the top right corner. You need to upload a CSV file with the invoice categories. An example is linked in the dialogue window.

 

Note: For encoding, Perk supports CSV files with UTF-8, UTF-16, and ISO/IEC 8859-1:1998 (Latin1) encoding.

Column Type Description
name String

Name used to identify the invoice category.

Category names cannot be localized to other languages. The category name appears as entered here, regardless the language chosen in the profile. E.g. if you enter “Accounts payable” as the category name, people with Perk set to German will see the category as “Accounts payable”, rather than “Abbrechnungsverbindlichkeiten”.

icon   Symbol used to identify the invoice category.
account String The invoice category’s account reference.
description String Description used to identify the invoice category
status

String:

  • draft
  • active
  • inactive
 Status of the category. If the category is inactive or draft, it cannot be used in an invoice.
IsCostObjectOptional Boolean (true/false) ERP-specific option. See Configuring categories for more information.
isTaxRateMandatory Boolean (true/false) ERP-specific option. See Configuring categories for more information.

 

Add a new category

You can also manually create a category by specifying a name, a symbol and an ERP account code, together with a description.

 

Creating categories via Perk API

You can create categories by sending a HTTP request to the /invoice-category endpoint.

Note: See the API reference for more information.

 

Configure categories

Once the category has been created, you can modify it by clicking on it in the table displayed. You can always modify its content, or deactivate it. 

Invoice categories include these options:

  • Cost object is not mandatory for this category: If this checkbox is selected, the corresponding cost object dropdown selection is not mandatory for the line items of the invoice.
  • Tax field is mandatory for this category: If this checkbox is on, the corresponding VAT percentage dropdown selection is mandatory for the line items of the invoice.

In addition, you can configure specific options according to your finance integration:

ERP-specific options Valid for Description
Exclude cost object from export

Non-PO invoice export:

  • Standard Perk file-based export
  • DATEV (file-based)
  • ABACUS API
  • ABACUS file-based
  • TOPAL

PO invoice export:

  • Oracle Netsuite
  • Innflow SAP integration
  • Perk API

If this checkbox is selected when you are using Invoice processing and export invoices to the ERP, cost objects are ignored.

Cost objects are NOT exported. 
For example, you may want to have a cost object-based approval flow but you don’t want to export these cost objects per line items.
No VAT input tax
  • SAP
  • ABACUS

If this checkbox is selected when an invoice is exported, the VAT associated with that line item is not taken into account. VAT input tax is ignored.

For example, not everyone is interested in VAT. This could be the case for certain specific categories.
Mark line items as tax-only for this category
  • SAP

If this checkbox is selected when a category is assigned to an invoice line item, the line item is marked as containing only tax.

The feature can be used for processing tax invoices such as invoices from customs.

 

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