Considerations for Receiving Invoice Images from Email

The integrated invoice imaging solution provides for processing invoice images that are received by email.

The email must be sent in a certain format and meet specifications that are acceptable by Oracle's Imaging Solution. Imaging specialists must scan and convert the paper invoices received from suppliers to images. Alternatively, if invoices have been received as email attachments, imaging specialists check for quality and proper formatting.

You can optionally enter attributes in the email subject for recording on the invoice and for routing if the invoices are incomplete. A preconfigured routing rule is provided to route incomplete invoices to all users with Accounts Payables Specialist and Accounts Payable Supervisor job roles.

Consider the following when receiving invoice images through email.

Invoice Images as Email Attachments

Invoice images can be included in email attachments in the following ways:

• Single page invoice as one attachment.

• Multiple page invoice as one attachment.

• Multiple invoices as one attachment.

• Single as well as multiple page invoices as multiple attachments.

Tip: Depending on the size of each scanned image, consider grouping the images into a single email to optimize the number of emails sent for processing. You can have multiple attachments on the same email.

Attribute Information in the Email Subject

You can specify up to four attributes in an email subject. These attributes can be recorded on the invoice or used to route the incomplete invoices to payables personnel for review and completion. Use the underscore sign (_) as a separator to indicate the start of routing attribute information.

Note: You can also use one of these attributes to override the default business unit on an unmatched scanned invoice. This attribute is always Routing Attribute 1.

For example, you have a specific business requirement to record categories on the invoice. These categories include invoice priority, supplier category, manufacturing plant number, storage bin number, and processing queue. You can specify values for these categories in the email subject.

This table lists the categories and their possible values.

Category	Value
Invoice priority	Regular, Urgent
Supplier category	Regular, Supply chain related
Manufacturing plant number	Plant-1, Plant-2, Plant-3
Storage bin number	Bin#1, Bin#2, Bin#3

A supplier sends an invoice with the email subject of Invoice-1234 attached. The imaging specialist reviews the email and provides additional routing information in the email subject. The revised email subject is Invoice-1234 attached_Urgent_Supply chain related_Plant-1_Bin#1.

This table shows how the content in the email subject maps to the routing attributes.

Email Subject Content	Routing Attribute Mapping
Invoice-1234 attached	Not applicable since the text appears before the first separator character
Urgent	Routing attribute 1
Supply chain related	Routing attribute 2
Plant-1	Routing attribute 3
Bin#1	Routing attribute 4

Tip: The routing attribute number and the category aren't explicitly linked together. You must enter the value for the category in the same order.

The supplier sends another invoice with the email subject of Invoice-2345 attached. The revised email subject is Invoice-2345 attached_Regular_Supply chain related_Plant-1_Bin#1. The routing rule is defined as follows:

• If routing attribute 1 = Urgent, assign invoice image to accounts payable specialist Harry.

• If routing attribute 1 = Regular, assign invoice image to accounts payable specialist Nathan.

In this example, invoice 1234 is assigned to Harry and invoice 2345 is assigned to Nathan.

As in the previous example, attributes can include alphanumeric characters. The maximum length for each attribute depends on how many attributes you're using. For example, if you use all five attributes, the maximum length of each attribute is 34 characters. You can modify the maximum length of each attribute to meet your requirements however, the sum of the attribute values should not exceed the limit. This limit is calculated as follows, assuming that all five attributes are used.

• Total number of characters allowed by Oracle Forms Recognition: 233

• Number of characters in the default file path areC:\OFR\Import\: 14

• Number of characters in the file extension .tif, including the period: 4

• Number of characters reserved for internal use as a unique reference number: 40

• Number of separator characters: 5

• Limit is the total characters minus file path minus file extension minus reserved characters minus separator characters (233-14-4-40-5): 170

Note: The limit changes if you use fewer than five attributes, because fewer separators are needed.

If the attribute in an email subject exceeds the maximum length specified for that attribute, the Oracle Imaging process errors.