On Trimble Spectrum? Test AP automation on invoices your desk already distributed.

An invoice reaches your AP desk by email or in the mail. Someone opens Vendor Invoice Entry, picks the vendor, and Spectrum works out whether the invoice belongs to a purchase order or a subcontract. Then every dollar needs a home: a G/L account, and for job costs a job, phase and cost type. Some desks key all of it. Others leave phase and cost type blank on standard invoices and let the project manager fill them in during approval. Either way the coding is the slow part, and once an invoice posts, fixing it takes another transaction.

For the test, AI reads copies of invoices your team has already posted and drafts each one as Spectrum would hold it, with the reason for every field written beside it. Nothing is keyed, routed, approved or paid. Your reviewer sets each draft next to the invoice as it actually posted and marks every line where the two part ways. What your team posted is the answer key.

Coding left blank on purpose. Spectrum lets whoever enters a standard invoice leave phase and cost type empty. The line is then unclassified, and the first reviewer in Invoice Approval codes it with the Assign Phases button, where only direct job cost rows can be changed, and only in their Phase and Cost type columns. Subcontract invoices can't wait like that: the phase defaults from the subcontract and the cost type is required. When a desk splits the work this way, the draft has to follow the same split, so it marks which lines it coded and which it would leave for the project manager, by the rule your desk uses.

One edit moves other fields. A job line needs a G/L account that is a work-in-progress account with the Job Cost option turned on. A phase set to Complete stops data entry, while an inactive one only warns. Changing the cost type can reset the G/L account, and changing the job, phase or cost type resets the tax code, after which Spectrum reallocates the tax. A quick recode during approval can therefore shift the ledger account or the use tax on that line without anyone meaning to. The draft shows the G/L account and tax code every line would land on, and flags any line coded to a phase your export lists as complete or inactive.

Routing codes and approval limits. With Use Invoice Approval processing checked in Accounts Payable Installation, a vendor can carry a default routing code, an invoice dollar limit, and an alternative routing code for anything above that limit. Each routing code lists its reviewers in order, top to bottom, and names a confirmer. If one reviewer on a code has an approval limit, all of them need one, each at least as high as the one before, and later reviewers are skipped when the invoice total sits within an earlier reviewer's limit. A second setting decides whether an invoice with no routing code skips approval and goes straight to Vendor Invoice Entry. So a wrong vendor or a misread total sends an invoice down the wrong path. Each draft names the routing code your vendor setup would pick and the reviewers it would reach.

Subcontract totals and progress billings. On a subcontract invoice, Spectrum shows its current totals: the revised subcontract, which is the original plus change orders, then less unapproved (bills still in Invoice Approval), less unposted, and less invoiced-to-date, which counts retention, leaving the total unbilled. Progress billings can be routed for approval before their billing item quantities and amounts are locked in, and the Subcontract Billing Worksheet shows each billing item's current and job-to-date figures. The draft carries this period's billing item, quantity and amount, and checks them against the unbilled figure in your export, so a bill that would run past the revised subcontract is flagged before anyone approves it.

Document tracking can stop the check. Codes set up in Document Tracking Item Maintenance are assigned to a vendor, or to one of its subcontracts, each with a date. Their actions decide what follows: a warning during entry, new invoices put on hold, no check selected at the Pre-Payment Register, or a lien release printed with the check. Trimble's own example pairs an insurance expiration code that holds new invoices with a 30-day code that only warns. Holds also come from below: if a sub-tier vendor is flagged for hold, new invoices on that subcontract go on hold by default. Each draft reports which tracking codes your export shows for that vendor and subcontract on the invoice date, and what they would do. Your reviewer, usually whoever runs Spectrum payables day to day, will look hardest at unclassified lines, tax codes after a recode, routing, and holds.

Once your reviewer agrees the drafts meet the success criteria, new invoices get the same drafting for about 30 days.

A person on your AP team approves, corrects or rejects each draft before anything is entered in Spectrum. How approved drafts get in is for whoever runs Spectrum to decide: keyed into Vendor Invoice Entry so your routing codes still send them to your reviewers, or brought in through Vendor Invoice Import if you already have the Spectrum Data Exchange module. Check runs, holds and lien releases stay with your team.