Manual entry of vendor invoices often requires significant time and effort within accounts payable. Invoices received via email must be carefully reviewed and entered into Business Central, which can cause a bottleneck when processing high volumes. Dynamics 365 Business Central Payables Agent offers a solution by automating invoice capture, extraction, and drafting, thereby improving productivity and accuracy.
This blog provides an overview of the Payables Agent, explains how to configure it, and outlines the end-to-end process of invoice automation in Business Central.
The Payables Agent is an AI-powered functionality integrated within Business Central designed to:
- Capture vendor invoices from monitored email accounts.
- Utilize Azure AI-powered optical character recognition (OCR) to extract invoice data from PDFs.
- Generate draft purchase invoices automatically for review and post.
- Enhance accounts payable performance by reducing manual data entry and errors.
This capability acts as a digital assistant in Business Central’s accounts payable workflow, supporting efficiency improvements and higher accuracy.
Prerequisites and Initial Setup
Before activating the Payables Agent, consider the following requirements:
- Feature Availability: Currently supported in the United States, Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand local versions.
- Mailbox Configuration: A Microsoft 365 mailbox must be set up to receive vendor invoice emails in PDF format.
- Mailbox Permissions: Appropriate Exchange permissions are needed, including “Full Access” and “Send As” for the mailbox, to enable monitoring and email processing by the Payables Agent.
Activation of Dynamics 365 Business Central Payables Agent
To enable the Payables Agent within Business Central:
1. Navigate to the Payables Agent option in the Role Center interface.
2. Select the option to Activate.
3. In the setup wizard, enable the monitor incoming information toggle button and select the mailbox to be used.
4. Review and accept the terms and conditions to complete the activation.
5. This process configures Business Central to monitor the designated mailbox for incoming vendor invoices.
Email Monitoring Functionality
Following the activation, a background process continuously monitors the configured mailbox:
- Incoming emails with PDF attachments are identified and recorded as Inbound E-Documents in Business Central.
- Each PDF attachment creates a separate inbound document entry to be processed independently.
- The Payables Agent applies OCR and data capture rules to extract invoice details from each document.
This automation streamlines the initial stage of invoice processing by ensuring all invoices received by email are logged centrally.
Testing with Sample Invoices & Document Draft Creation
For evaluation or demonstration purposes, sample invoice documents can be utilized:
- These samples are automatically sent to the monitored mailbox in demo companies such as Contoso Coffee.
- Alternatively, sample invoice files can be downloaded and forwarded from an email account manually.
This facilitates quick verification of Dynamics 365 Business Central Payables Agent functionality without requiring actual vendor invoices.
Upon receipt and capture of an invoice document, the Payables Agent:
- Creates a purchase document draft populated with extracted header and line information.
- Supplements data fields by referencing previously posted purchase invoices for the corresponding vendor, improving draft completeness.
- Supports custom fields introduced through modifications or extensions, maintaining alignment with business-specific requirements.
This stage prepares invoices for user review and subsequent finalization.
Invoice Processing Workflow
The following steps illustrate a typical invoice processing flow:
1. Invoice Reception: A vendor sends a PDF invoice via email to the monitored mailbox.
2. Inbound Document Creation: The email and attachment are imported, creating an Inbound E-Document entry.
3. Vendor Identification: Even if the sender’s email address is not registered under the vendor’s profile, the system identifies the vendor using invoice content such as name and address.
4. Draft Reset (If needed): Users may reset the draft to reapply capture rules and correct extraction errors.
5. Draft Finalization: The draft purchase invoice is finalized if the data is valid and complete; otherwise, errors are flagged for correction.
6. Inbound Document Update: The document status changes from unprocessed to processed, and the finalized invoice number is recorded.
This streamlined approach facilitates efficient and accurate purchase of invoice creation.
Conclusion
Dynamics 365 Business Central Payables Agent is a compelling enhancement to Business Central’s accounts payable capabilities. Automating the capture and processing of vendor invoices reduces administrative overhead and boosts operational accuracy.
Organizations with significant invoice volumes can realize immediate productivity gains by configuring this feature to handle invoice receipt, data capture, and posting drafts automatically.
