What's new

New features are deployed to the US on Monday, November 11. New features are deployed to Europe, Asia, and Australia on Tuesday, November 12.

• Custom validation rules for amount fields are now generally available for all customers.

• To further promote stability and fair usage of the system, new limits are placed on Workflow services.

• The Admin Center user interface has been enhanced for a more intuitive and efficient user experience, featuring improved behavior of drop-down lists.

• Manual verification has been further streamlined by optimizing extraction validation rules for the invoice number field. The result is less manual verification and reduced verification time.

• The Coupa AP integration has several new features.

  • You can now apply Content group filtering to contracts, so only contracts that belong to the content groups specified in the Content group mapping settings are imported.

  • It is now possible to exclude contracts by contract number during master data import. It is helpful, for example, to exclude the pucnhout catalog to prevent duplicate contract numbers from being imported. The new setting is called Excluded contract numbers.

  • The Replace invalid characters setting helps ensure smooth master-data import by automatically replacing invalid characters, such as line breaks, with the character you specify. This reduces import failures, making the process more efficient and reliable.

  • Delta synchronization has been improved to include suppliers whose sub-entities have changed. This enhancement ensures the latest supplier master data is retrieved from Coupa.

  • Purchase order synchronization no longer excludes POs from inactive accounts. In other words, POs from inactive accounts are now imported.

• The NetSuite integration now supports general ledger coding for PO invoices and credit notes.

• The Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations integration is now certified for Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations version 10.0.41.

• The SAP S/4HANA Cloud ES integration supports automatic multiple-account assignment of purchase order lines.

New features are deployed to the US on Monday, October 7. New features are deployed to Europe, Asia, and Australia on Tuesday, October 8.

• It is now possible to create custom validation rules for amount fields. AP Essentials offers many pre-defined validation rules that cover most needs. However, if you have specialized requirements that are not covered by the standard rules, you can create custom rules to ensure accuracy and correctness of your document data. By implementing custom validation rules, you can minimize errors, prevent data discrepancies, and streamline financial processes, ultimately enhancing the reliability of your financial reporting and reducing the risk of costly mistakes.

  This feature is available on a private preview basis. As it is still under development, changes in functionality may occur.

• Manual verification has been streamlined by optimizing extraction validation rules. The result is less manual verification and reduced verification time.

• The user experience in AP Essentials Office has been enhanced by adding more context-sensitive help links to dialogs throughout the application.

• AP Essentials Connect was updated to version 10.6.14.8045.

• The Oracle Financials Cloud integration has been enhanced to automatically classify line types as goods or services based on the quantity and price fields.

• The NetSuite integration is now certified for NetSuite version 2024.2.

• The Coupa AP integration is now certified for Coupa version R40.

New features are deployed to the US on Monday, September 9. New features are deployed to Europe, Asia, and Australia on Tuesday, September 10.

• Supplier master data now includes two new optional settings

  • Invoices require PO — Improves automatic document type classification by requiring PO numbers on invoices on a supplier basis. When you enable this setting on a supplier, its documents are classified as purchase order invoices, even if the purchase order number is absent from the document. This is helpful because it prevents documents from being classified incorrectly.

  • Credit notes require PO — Ensures all credit notes received by the specified supplier have a purchase order number. Unlike Invoices require PO, this setting does not affect automatic document classification.

• The document history log has been enhanced to record when Office users change the supplier, document subtype, or debit/credit field.

• Date fields for the Latvian document type have been updated to include short month names.

• The Coupa AP integration has several improvements.

  • Mapping of the tax registration number field has been improved. Now the integration looks for tax registration numbers in two additional locations.

  • It is now possible to map remit-to fields on the buyer level, so you can specify different field mappings for each buyer.

  • A new target system setting (Chart of Accounts for POs) limits purchase order import to the chart of accounts (CoA) you specify. This setting is helpful because it ensures only relevant purchase orders are synchronized and available during PO matching. Buyer-specific settings offer more control and efficiency by limiting POs to corresponding buyers.

  • During setup, it is no longer necessary to create an API response filter in Coupa.

  • The logic which determines the invoice line type has been improved to better handle non-PO invoices. Previously, the integration determined the invoice line type solely based on the quantity field. Now the integration checks for the presence of the unit of measure field when determining the line type. If the unit of measure is missing, the line type defaults to amount (InvoiceAmountLine ). This change ensures that expense lines, which do not typically include a unit of measure, are correctly processed, preventing calculation errors and ensuring accurate line totals in Coupa. Optionally, you can specify a default unit of measure to use if the unit of measure field is missing and quantities are specified.

  • Small changes were made to supplier site settings to improve usability.

• The NetSuite integration has several improvements.

  • A new target system setting (Import only billable POs) lets you filter the purchase orders you import, so you can import only billable purchase orders. Note: You must update the NetSuite bundle before you can take advantage of this feature.

  • The NetSuite integration can now include IBAN bank account numbers during supplier master data import. Importing supplier banks requires the "Electronic Bank Payments" bundle from NetSuite (previously known as "NetSuite Electronic Payments"). Note: You must update the NetSuite bundle before you can take advantage of this feature. If you have not already installed the Electronic Bank Payments bundle, you must install it before you update the AP Essentials NetSuite bundle.

  • If your NetSuite solution uses SuiteTax engine and tax code master data, enter "customsearchapstaxcodes" in the new target system setting (TAX CODES > Saved search ID) to import tax codes correctly. If you do not use SuiteTax engine, you can leave this setting empty to continue importing tax code master data as usual. Note: You must update the NetSuite bundle before you can take advantage of this feature.

• AP Essentials Connect has been updated to version 10.6.13.8029.

New features are deployed to the US on Tuesday, August 13. New features are deployed to Europe, Asia, and Australia on Wednesday, August 14.

• Interpretation performance has been improved for accounts receivable documents.

• Automatic buyer classification has been improved in cases where multiple buyers have the same address.

• AP Essentials now supports PDF files from version 1.3 to 2.0 as input.

• The Coupa AP integration can now automatically submit documents to Coupa after they have been successfully posted in the draft state.

• The legacy Coupa integration supports automatic net amount calculation. Enable the new setting (Calculate missing net amounts) in the target system settings.

• Invoice Portal, the universal connection point for sending and receiving electronic invoices, has changed its name to E-Invoice Connect.

• VAT rates have been updated for several countries such as China, Finland, Singapore, and Vietnam. Up-to-date VAT rates increase interpretation rates and improve internal validation rules.

• The colors of several Analytics reports have changed to improve usability and readability.

• The SFTP target system supports the latest ciphers.

New features are deployed to the US on Monday, June 17. New features are deployed to Europe, Asia, and Australia on Tuesday, June 18.

• Office users can now capture line-item fields that span multiple rows on any line-item text field. Previously, this feature was limited to line-item description fields.

• AP Essentials Connect has been updated to version 10.6.11.7938. The robustness of AP Essentials Connect has been improved. We recommend upgrading to the latest version.

• Many Analytics reports have been improved for better usability. Changes include additional tables with more information and more logical sorting orders.

• The Coupa AP integration now includes a test mode, which lets you bypass Coupa and send output to an SFTP server for testing purposes. This is helpful if you use custom XSLT to transform output because you can test the output to make sure your XSLT transform is functioning properly without disturbing the production system.

• The Coupa AP integration is now certified for Coupa version R39.

• The NetSuite integration has several new features.

  • A new target system setting (Calculate use tax automatically) lets US SuiteTax accounts determine whether they want to use tax calculations from SuiteTax engine or tax data from AP Essentials.

  • If your NetSuite solution uses SuiteTax engine, you can optionally override tax calculations in SuiteTax engine with data from AP Essentials.

  • The latest NetSuite bundle includes improved functionality for mapping the tax registration number to supplier master data. If Tax Reg. Number (vatregnumber) is not found, Default Tax Reg. (defaulttaxreg) is used.

• When processing FatturaPA documents, AP Essentials now maps withholding tax amount fields.

• ESXML field mappings have been updated with new fields and business logic. See these fields for more information.

  • CreditedInvoiceNumber

  • TotalTaxAmountInTaxCurrency

  • InvoiceTaxCurrency

  • LIT_PO_RowIdentifier

  • LIT_AdditionalReference

  • LIT_AdditionalReferenceType

  • InvoiceTotalLineAmount

  • InvoiceCode

  • LIT_UniqueArticleNumber

• Purchases made through the Store are now performed using the latest iteration of the 3DS authentication protocol.

• The Data import and Reports add-ins for Microsoft Excel include user authentication improvements, which provide a more seamless experience with Safari and other browsers.

New features are deployed to the US on Monday, May 13. New features are deployed to Europe, Asia, and Australia on Tuesday, May 14.

• New document types for Australian and Norwegian purchase orders are available for accounts receivable processes. These document types are currently available on a preview basis.

• Accounts payable document types for Greece and Israel are now generally available for all customers. .

• New features for drawing line-item fields, such as drawing descriptions that span multiple rows and capturing partial values, are now generally available for all customers.

• When using Workflow services and the Balancing against total amount setting is disabled, empty accounting rows are no longer automatically generated. This saves you time and reduces the likelihood of coding errors caused by empty lines.

• Support for named groups in regular expressions now extends to all line-item fields whose field type is set to text. Named groups are helpful, for example, if you want to exclude certain characters from extracted field values. Previously, only purchase order fields were supported.

• It is now possible to add contact information to company profiles in Admin Center. Contact information ensures seamless communication and quick assistance when needed. You can add contact information to company profiles on all levels (subsidiary, partner, partner group, customer, customer group, buyer, seller).

• It is now possible to determine whether E-Invoice Connect copies suppliers that are blocked in AP Essentials. You can specify this feature when you specify supplier synchronization. Previously, blocked suppliers were copied automatically.

• Several volume reports for Analytics reports have been improved for better usability.

  • A table has been added to the Volume by organization report to make it easier to view document counts.

  • The Volume by sender report now displays information sorted by the number of documents processed in a bar graph. Previously, the chart was a pie graph, alphabetically sorted by organization name.

  • The Document processing report now displays information sorted by the number of documents received. Previously, the report was sorted alphabetically by organization name.

  • A table has been added to the Process time by sender report. In addition to process times, the table also displays document counts.

• Several drop-down lists in Analytics reports now support multi-item selection. For example, in the Workload overview report, you can select multiple organizations in the Organization list. Previously, you could only select one organization or all organizations.

• Audit trail logs have been improved to include information about the number of uploaded master data items. Previously, only the number of updated, created, and deleted items was logged.

New features are deployed to the US on Monday, April 8. New features are deployed to Europe, Asia, and Australia on Tuesday, April 9.

• When drawing line-item fields, AP Essentials has new, intelligent methods for capturing values enclosed in parenthesis. This feature is available on a private preview basis.

• When drawing line-item description fields that span multiple rows, it is now possible to capture descriptions that are split across page breaks. This feature is available on a private preview basis.

• The interpretation of all line-item fields has been greatly improved. AP Essentials now recognizes that the number of decimal places can differ across rows for all line-item fields, including custom line-item fields. The result is increased confidence rates, which translates to an increase in automation and less manual verification. Previously, this feature only applied to line-item quantity and unit price fields.

• New purchase order document types are available for Denmark and France for accounts receivable processes. These document types are currently available on a preview basis.

• The Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations integration now supports the Vendor invoice document attachment V2 entity. To utilize the new feature, you must create a new recurring data job and clear the Use Vendor invoice document attachment V1 setting in the target system settings.

• The Coupa AP integration is now generally available for all customers.

• The NetSuite integration has several new enhancements.

  • The NetSuite integration can perform preliminary registration of invoices directly after verification, before starting a workflow. This is helpful because it lets organizations reclaim VAT more quickly, without having to wait for the workflow to complete.

  • A new NetSuite bundle (version 1.33 ) is available for installation, which includes additional fields for purchase order synchronization. Be sure to update your bundle.

  • The NetSuite integration is now certified to support NetSuite version 2024.1.

• The PROCESS DIRECTOR AP integration has been improved to be more resilient against issues with poor network connectivity.

• AP Essentials Connect has been updated to version 10.6.9.7822.

• Account creation has been improved to prevent unnecessary activation of extra services. When you add a new customer account, Storage and Workflow services are no longer enabled automatically.

• The default sorting order of several Analytics reports has been improved for better usability. For example, the By reject code report now displays information sorted by the number of rejected documents instead of sorting alphabetically by reject code.

• When importing users using CSV files, it is now possible to specify the Allow access to unclassified documents setting.

• It is now possible to specify Invoice Portal connections on the buyer level. In other words, you can specify different E-Invoice Connect members for each buyer. Previously, you could only specify one E-Invoice Connect member at the customer account level.

• It is now possible to automatically pause and resume customer group accounts when a service plan volume and/or subscription period reaches its limit. When a customer group is paused, all customer accounts that belong to the group are also paused. Users can continue working normally. However, no output is sent to the target system. If the service plan is renewed, the customer group resumes automatically. Active customer accounts within the group are also resumed automatically, unless they exceed the limits specified in their own service plans.

• To further promote stability and fair usage of the system, new limits are placed on the number of allowed users, user groups, customers, customer groups, buyers, and sellers.

• A new API method is available, which lets you retrieve batches as initially uploaded in their original file format.

New features are deployed to the US, Asia, and Australia on Monday, February 26. New features are deployed to Europe on Wednesday, February 28.

• Kofax is now Tungsten Automation. The choice to embrace Tungsten Automation as our new name reflects the growth of our company and the need for a brand that more closely aligns with our present identity and future aspirations. This transformation highlights our expanded capabilities and robust solutions, and our dedication to excellence, adaptability, and growth. It signifies our commitment to customers and partners, assuring them that we will endure as a trusted partner, offering unwavering support throughout their transformation journeys.

  To reflect this new change, the default AP Essentials branding now features the Tungsten Automation logo.

• It is now possible to determine which attachment formats are accepted when receiving documents via email input. This is helpful, for example, if you only want to process certain file types.

• When drawing line-item amount fields, you can capture partial text that is split by a slash. This feature is available on a private preview basis.

• Currency field extraction has been improved with greater confidence when processing documents from suppliers/customers that send documents in multiple currencies.

• Supplier identification improvements using master data are now generally available for all customers.

• A new document type for German purchase orders is available for accounts receivable processes. This document type is currently available on a preview basis.

• The Coupa AP integration has been improved with several new features.

  • All target system settings containing lists now use semicolons to separate list items. Previously, some settings used commas, while others used semicolons.

  • The integration can now import supplier sites by creating a supplier in AP Essentials for each supplier site in Coupa. You enable this feature in the target system settings, where you can also choose to exclude inactive supplier sites.

  • You can now specify which purchase orders and purchase order lines to import based on their statuses.

  • Coupa clients that integrate with multiple ERP systems simultaneously can now use PO prefix templates to avoid issues with PO matching.

  • When delta synchronization is enabled, and you change the email of a user in Coupa, a new user is created in AP Essentials. However, the old user remains. To periodically remove the unused users, you can perform a full synchronization using the Days between full synchronization setting.

• It is now possible to automatically pause and resume customer accounts when the service plan volume and/or subscription period reaches its limit.

• Developers who create custom integrations via the REST API can now authenticate users without using cookies. This is helpful if you make REST requests from a system that does not support cookies.

• A new version of the AP Essentials API SDK is available here.

New features are deployed to the US on Monday, January 29. New features are deployed to Europe, Asia, and Australia on Tuesday, January 30.

• When drawing line-item description fields that span multiple rows, it is now possible to specify the maximum number of rows you want to capture. Specifying the maximum number of rows improves the interpretation of description fields that span multiple rows. This feature is available on a private preview basis.

• The interpretation of line-item quantity (LIT_DeliveredQuantity, LIT_PO_OrderedQuantity) and unit price (LIT_UnitPriceAmount, LIT_PO_UnitPriceAmount) fields has been greatly improved. Previously, AP Essentials expected quantity and unit price fields to have the same number of decimal places across rows, and if they did not, the fields were marked as uncertain. For example, AP Essentials expected the line-item quantity to have the same number of decimal places on all rows. However, now AP Essentials recognizes that the number of decimal places can differ across rows for these fields. The result is increased confidence rates, which translates to an increase in automation and less manual verification.

• A new privilege is available for Office users that determines whether user interactions affect online learning during verification. The new privilege is called Update online learning and is enabled on users by default. Administrators can disable this privilege to prevent new or inexperienced users from having a detrimental effect on documents that have high identification and extraction rates.

• The NetSuite integration now supports the mapping of custom coding fields to expense records in NetSuite. This feature opens new workflow possibilities for NetSuite users. The new target system setting is called Custom expense field mapping for accounts. Note also that the Custom expense field mapping setting has been renamed to Custom expense field mapping for line items.

• It is now possible to pause customer groups. When you pause a customer group, all customer accounts within the group are automatically paused. When an account is paused, users can continue working normally. However, no output is sent to the target system. After you resume a group that was paused, you must resume each individual customer account manually.

Looking for older news? See the archives for release notes dating back to October 25, 2011.