Hi there

We recently released a number of changes in our Invoicing module to make life easier for your Accounts Payable teams, especially when working in the Invoice Inbox. 

We'll have more updates later this month with additional enhancements to both the Invoice Inbox & Create Invoice screen, as well as an update on our upcoming Invoice Extraction features.

Tags Filter

We know a lot of customers utilise tags to help manage which team member is assigned to an Invoice, whether an item is currently on Hold or all sorts of other states.

We've just introduced a new filter option, which will let you see any items without tags. Just select the "No Tag Assigned" option at the top to filter down to these!

Attachment Handling

We have now improved our attachment filtering within the Invoice Inbox. There are two key highlights:

- Any suspicious files are automatically removed without blocking the whole Invoice Item. You can still process the message within the Invoice Inbox, but feel safe that the file has been removed!

- Any files under a 30KB limit will be automatically removed. This limit has been set to filter out any email signature images and other small files that might be attached. This excludes any PDFs and any Email Subject files if you're using that feature.

For more information on this filtering, please refer to our help documentation here.

Expenses - Sortable Columns

One more feature to highlight for our users in the expenses module. In the View Expenses menu we now allowing sorting on certain columns. This will help you quickly identify expenses as per your rules and get them reimbursed quickly!

What's Coming

Stay tuned for more news in the coming week!

Hello and Happy New Year!

It's hard to believe we're almost in February.

Our team have been hard at work on several important features this month. We're also very close to sharing details of our brand new Professional Edition of the Expenses module. Look forward to more details next month!

Invoice Import

An exciting new feature in the Invoicing module allows you to import a csv file of Invoices, against standard or blanket orders. 

This feature speeds up invoice processing, and we've even seen some customers co-ordinate the file creation with their suppliers, saving even more time!

To access this import, make sure you're using the Create Invoices role and navigate to the View Invoices menu. You'll need to select the Import option on the right:

Unimarket will validate that the Invoice details are all complete, and then pass this through your standard Invoice Matching rules. 

You can find more details on the file format and upload process in our help documentation here.

Other Enhancements this month

- We've simplified commenting on Contracts. If you can see the Contract, you can add a comment.

- In addition to this, Contract Workflow tasks are now included in the Tasks Digest email.

- Expenses now gives a proper email notification when a mixture of Expense lines are Approved & Declined.

- Users submitting Supplier Requests must fill out all details of the Supplier, rather than searching for one that exists in Unimarket. Thanks to everyone who shared feedback in this area!

- Another suite of improvements to our new Create Invoice screen has been released. The highlights are improving our Preview component and ensuring all Invoice Administration settings are compatible with the screen.

What's Coming

Speaking of Create Invoice, we know that many customers are eagerly awaiting news on Invoice Data Extraction! This will be a big focus for our team in February, and we can't wait to have this up and running for you to try!

Outside of this and Expenses, look forward to enhancements to Scheduled Exports and further rollout of the ability to Mention Users in Comments.

Hi There,

September is over and we're into the final quarter of 2024! 

Our team has been hard at work behind the scenes this month, laying the foundations for a number of critical improvements:

- Attachment storage is currently being overhauled, to ensure we can store & expose all critical documents via our APIs.

- Advanced features for Expenses are well underway, with great progress towards reconciling Credit Card transactions.

- Enhancements to our new Invoice Extraction functionality, which help ensure dates match the original document.

Invoice Transaction Summary

Before authorizing payment of an invoice, it is critical that all required information has been reviewed. For our US customer base, this may mean additional reviews outside of the organisation, and possibly at state level.

To help ensure all critical information is easily accessible, we have introduced a new "Transaction Summary" document. This PDF is generated once the Invoice reaches the Invoice Accepted state, as that usually means the invoice is guaranteed to be paid.

This document is currently available through the UI as a new option: 

The document itself is a new standard PDF. You can see it contains a range of useful information to help answer key questions:

- Who is the Invoice for and for how much?

- What order lines was it Invoiced against, and has receiving been completed?

- What approvals were undertaken to arrive at this invoice?

In a future release this document will be optionally available in our cXML outbound invoice integration endpoint.

What's coming

Outside of the larger changes above, we have some really neat features coming soon! These include AI auto-categorization when creating non-catalog items and new date range options when scheduling reports. 

Hi There,

We're still busy improving our new Create Invoice screen, and have had really useful feedback so far! If you are ready to switch over to this screen in Production, please get in touch.

Alongside that work, we're continuing to address key pain points across Unimarket. Our goal is to help avoid situations where your users get stuck, or need to restart what they're doing, ultimately saving valuable time.

Order Submission

In a lot of situations, not just with retrofit orders, you may not want to send a Purchase Order to a supplier. It may have already been fulfilled, or the supplier might be processing the order and you just need to record the details in Unimarket.

As part of our Editing Requisition functionality, Buyers and Approvers now have the option to edit the Order Submission. If you really want to avoid sending the Order to the supplier, just update it! No more needing to recreate the entire Requisition and go through the whole approval workflow again.

If you're not currently using this feature, you can find out more about it here.

Commenting on Orders

It's now possible to select a User when commenting on an Order. That user will receive a special email notification, so you can chase them up on receiving or ask them to take a look at the Order details.

This is just the first part of a wider change, and does assume the mentioned user has access to the Order.

We've heard that Requisitions would be a great follow up for this feature, but let us know other areas you'd like to see this!

Other Enhancements this month

- When viewing a Product's Item Details, we display the date it came back to Unimarket from a Roundtrip catalog. Helpful when discussing pricing!

- Supplier Invitations now show which user created the invitation.

- Contracts can now be archived, if you just want to remove them completely.

What's Coming

Enhancements to our Supplier Request process are mostly complete. Expect to see this in September!

We've also started on Invoice Data Extraction via AI, where we will scan your Invoice document and use the data to populate our Create Invoice screen. We already have key information like the Invoice Number, Invoice Date and Order Date working and are hard at work filling in other information. 

Finally the ability to choose a Default Justification per Supplier is due for release within the next fortnight. We'll have a special announcement for that one!

Hi There,

We've been hard at work implementing new functionality this month, and have a range of improvements to help you manage users easily! 🎉 

We're currently gathering feedback on our new Create Invoice screen. If you've had a chance to try this in Demo, let us know your thoughts!

Default Attention

Often a buyer will need items delivered to a room or lab number, or a centralized receiving department or reception area. 

We've added a new personalization setting in My Account where users can set their Default Attention. 

Rather than just using their Name, this default will be used in Checkout, ensuring goods aren't misplaced or delayed!

Default Account Code

A similar option to the above, you can define a default account code for each user, which might be where their spend is usually allocated outside of project work. 

We've added a column to our User Upload so you can quickly get this in place for all users. 

If you've been holding back on this feature, now might be a good time to check it out! More details are available in our help material - here.

Users Creation & Deactivation

We know many of our customers are concerned with when a user was created or deactivated within Unimarket. 

To help audit this, we have added a new filter in the Users menu:

The Users Export also contains two new fields for each date.

Changing the Buyer on an Order

It's normal for users to change roles, take holidays or possibly even leave your organization. Purchase Orders still need to be processed and assigned to an active user though! 

To help quickly and efficiently manage staff changes, you can now Update Buyers in Bulk from the View Orders menu:

Having the right buyer in place will help avoid delays in processing orders, receiving items or ensuring invoices are paid on time.

Other Enhancements this month

- Supplier Requests are now included in the Tasks Digest. More changes in this space are coming very soon!

- We've revamped the Attachments Required settings for Expenses. This can be set at Claim or Line level, and only applies on Submit, not when saving.

- Requisitions now include Line Numbers!

- Received an email about a comment? The email subject now includes who wrote it!

What's Coming

We're hard at work improving the Create Invoice screen and our Supplier Request process.

Beyond this we'll be adding support for Invoice Data Extraction, offering another way of efficiently processing Invoices and ensuring you have accurate data.

Stay tuned for the ability to choose a Default Justification at Supplier level, that should be released in August!

Hello!

We're back with a major new enhancement to our Invoice Inbox, and we're excited to share that our new Create Invoice screen is rapidly approaching go live! You'll be able to try this out in Demo by the end of June.

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Invoice Inbox Export

Consistent feedback from the Invoice Inbox has shown us that customers want to measure the efficiency and effectiveness of their AP processes. One simple metric available is to compare the Date when an Invoice arrived in the Inbox against the Date when an Invoice was actually created within Unimarket.

Our new Invoice Inbox export will help you understand your AP processes, ensure thinks are running smoothly and identify any trends or complex suppliers. The Export respects all filters and any search criteria you have entered within the Inbox as well, so make sure to take off the Ready status for a complete picture!

There are a number of columns included in this first version, but if you have any other suggestions or data you'd like to report on from the Inbox, let us know!

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Other Enhancements this month

• Our Account Number field will display successfully from Supplier to Purchase Order PDF. We've relabeled this field to avoid any confusion with Account Codes!
• If you use both our outbound Order cXML and our Contracts module, we have additional Contract data that can be sent back on the Order.
• Improvements to the Org Unit Upload to better support loading Account Codes.
• Improvements to our Lite to Registered feature to better support existing Registered & Premium suppliers.

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What's Coming

More details on our new Create Invoice screen are coming very soon! 

Hi again!

We hope those of you in the US enjoyed attending our Day of Collaboration earlier in April & the sneak peak of our upcoming Product enhancements. The team is hard at work finalizing our new combined Create Invoices screen and this will be ready for use later in the quarter.

This month we released a number of improvements across Unimarket. We'd encourage you to revisit some of our features like Shopping Lists or Invoice Reminders if you're not currently using these.

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Shopping Lists

When a user saves a non-catalog item to their Shopping List, they can now come back and edit the details. As price changes over time, they can keep re-using & updating the item, without needing to create a brand new record. 

This will help University staff save time when reordering teaching materials or making other recurring purchases.

As part of this change, we will now identify which user created a shared shopping list:

We have more ideas to help make shared lists as effective as possible, so please reach out to us with any suggestions!

File Processing

We've expanded access to the File Processing menu so that users with the Create Invoices role can see Invoice & Payment uploads. 

Interested in seeing how file automation could benefit your community? Learn more here - Unimarket File Automation

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Other Enhancements this month

• Our Invoice Reminder will now exclude weekends and public holidays. No more reminder spam!
• The View Expenses search box now allows either Name or Number searching.
• The Unimarket Invoices - All report now contains the following:
  • Account Code information when an Invoice has not yet matched.
  • On Behalf Of user information for Retrofit Invoices, where an Order has not yet been created.

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What's Coming

We have an update coming on Shipping Matching, a new range of settings which you may like to adopt within the Invoicing module.

In addition to the Create Invoices screen, we will also soon be releasing Unimarket's first use of AI. Watch this space!

Hi there!

Happy leap year! In addition to improvements in the supplier registration space, we've released several enhancements this month that will help address key pain points.

Supplier Registration, Invitation & Lite to Registered

These features are now live in production for all customers. We hope that these streamline supplier management and increase the number of suppliers who register! 

Highlights from this month

• A new setting is available in Expenses to make attachments mandatory. We heard this feedback from a number of customers and wanted to make this available as soon as possible. We've got ideas for improving this and will build on it in a future release.
• The File Processing menu can now be filtered by Purpose or State. You can use these filters to quickly find any files that had errors, or files of a specific type, such as Invoices, Suppliers or Approval configuration.
• We've improved the performance of our Users upload. This has always been a complex upload, we really wanted it to process more efficiently and with less friction!

What's Coming

A major revamp of our invoice creation process is currently underway. Our existing screens are split into different flows depending on whether an order is present or not, and we know that information is not always clearly laid out. Our new screen will allow you to switch between having an order present or creating a retrofit / after the fact invoice easily. We also have some neat new tricks for viewing the invoice attachment on screen, and viewing critical order information. 

Beyond these changes, we're exploring solutions to support document scanning, and plan to integrate this into invoice creation to help speed up the Accounts Payable process even further!

Hi again!

We hope you had a restful holiday period over Christmas and New Year! It's hard to believe that January has already been and gone. Our team took this time to really dig into a lot of customer pain points, and you'll find a range of enhancements based on your feedback below.

Creating Lite Suppliers

When creating a lite supplier, it's important that key supplier information is captured in one place. To help drive efficiency, we've included the following fields in the Create popup:

• Category
• Payment Term
• Tax Rate
• Tax Registered (NZ & AU only)
• NZBN (NZ only)

Exports

You may have noticed that Exports from Unimarket were limited to 1 years worth of data. Our latest update includes a number of performance enhancements, that have allowed us to drop this time-based restriction and put in a maximum number of records instead. This will allow you much greater flexibility, you could export all Orders across 5 years for a particular supplier, or all invoices for all time in the Pending Invoice Acceptance state. 

Other Enhancements this month

• Contract Workflows are now sorted to show the newest events first.
• Shopping Lists are sorted alphabetically, with your Favourites still at the top.
• It's now possible to add an attachment to an Expense Claim even after it's pending or approved. We're planning to extend this to the Expenses themselves soon.
• Blanket Orders now support a separate ID pattern from other Order Types. This will help admins and end users easily identify blankets, and ensure alignment with the IDs held in your finance system. Ask your Account Manager if you'd like to learn more about this!
• The Invoice Export and report now include Buyer information for Retrofit Invoices. When a Retrofit Invoice is waiting for the Buyer to action it, you'll be able to see their details and chase them up much more easily.

What's Coming

We've been diving into current challenges within supplier registration and supplier creation. Registration is the number one source of support requests from suppliers so we've focused on making it simpler and we've given it a makeover. A long standing need has also been the ability to convert a Lite supplier into a Registered supplier so you can smoothly manage this transition as your suppliers complete the registration process. It will soon be possible to automatically or manually convert a Lite supplier into its Registered equivalent rather than swapping from one to the other. 

Hi there! 

Check out the great new features added over November.

Splitting Invoice Attachments

One of our product focus areas is to ensure invoices can be processed more efficiently in your organization. Following discussions with customers, a key frustration was the additional work created when a supplier submits more than 1 invoice attached to a single email in the inbox. This latest update includes the ability to automatically split out invoices if they arrive in your inbox attached to a single email so that your AP team can deal with them efficiently.

A few highlights of this feature:

• Suppliers can upload multiple files in 1 email and the inbox automatically splits the invoices into separate emails for easy processing
• All spam items like logo images are suppressed on the original email so you can easily see the invoice.... from the other email junk!

Other changes this month

• We have made further budget improvements to make it easier for budget administrators to view their overall spend
• We have added a Supplier Tags filter to the marketplace so your buyers can easily filter and find  the right suppliers 

Stay tuned for more news about our new supplier management and invite improvements!