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 policies require the AP Automation add-on.

Key capabilities

• Email-to-bill capture: forward an invoice and AI extracts vendor, amount, due date, and line items into a draft
• Document AI 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
• Tiered approval assignment (auto-approve, operations, advisor + owner) by amount and contract match
• AI risk scoring and bulk-approval of low-risk bills in the approval queue
• Bank-transaction payment matching with confidence scoring and split payments
• 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 bill"]
  capture --> clean["Review & clean up"]
  clean --> gate{"Approval enabled?"}
  gate -->|"No (default)"| received["Posted to AP (Received)"]
  gate -->|"Yes: Send for Approval"| approve["Approval routing by amount"]
  approve --> received
  received --> pay["Schedule & pay"]

How to use it

1. Forward vendor invoices to your business mailbox (see AP Emails), or upload/enter bills directly under Bills.
2. Review the AI-extracted draft in the Bill Inbox, set the vendor and expense account, and create the bill.
3. With approval off (the default), the cleaned-up bill posts straight to Received. With approval on, click Send for Approval to route it — then work it from the Approval Queue (see AP Approval Workflow).
4. Keep Vendor Contracts current so bills match terms and are processed correctly.
5. Record payment against the matching bank transaction; the entry posts and the bill closes.
6. Watch AP aging 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 — bills marked Over Contract or Needs Review skip auto-approve even when the amount is under your threshold.
• Run AI risk scoring before working the queue, bulk-approve the low-risk items, then focus on the rest.
• 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, the approval queue, 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 three ways, and AI capture pre-matches what it can:

• Email inbox — forward an invoice to your business mailbox; DayZero extracts it in the background.
• Document AI — upload a PDF, image, Excel, CSV, or pasted text for AI extraction.
• Manual or bulk CSV — 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, you clean up a draft and Send for Approval — the bill moves to Pending Approval (out of the ledger) and DayZero distributes it by amount and contract match:

• At/under the auto-approve threshold with a matched contract — approves automatically.
• Up to the ops threshold — directs to Operations.
• Above that, or Over Contract / Needs Review — escalates to Advisor + 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, and low-risk bills can be bulk-approved. 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 — gates vendor contracts, the approval queue, and approval policies; bundled into the Firm Enterprise tier.
• Bill approval workflow toggle — turned on or off per business (off by default) on the AP Approval page. With it off, cleaned-up bills post straight to Received; with it on, you Send for Approval to route a bill before it hits the ledger.

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.
• Routing is never automatic on creation or receipt — a bill enters approval only when you explicitly Send for Approval, so enabling the workflow doesn't disturb bills already in flight.