Viewpoint Vista AP automation, tried first on invoices your desk already posted.

Today someone on your AP desk opens the invoice, finds the vendor and decides what each line is in Vista's terms: a job line coded to job, phase and cost type, a line against a PO item, a subcontract line, or an expense line that touches only the general ledger. Many shops key it into AP Unapproved Invoice Entry so a project manager sees it first. The questions are what slow it down: is that phase on this job, how much retainage belongs on a sub's bill, and is the vendor's insurance still current?

For the test, AI reads copies of invoices your team has already posted and drafts each one as Vista would hold it, with a short reason beside every field it filled. Nothing is entered in Vista, routed to a reviewer or paid. Your reviewer compares each draft with the transaction your desk actually posted and marks where the two disagree.

The line type decides the coding. Every AP line in Vista carries a line type, and the type decides which fields it asks for. Vista's help lists eight: 1 Job, 2 Inventory, 3 Expense, 4 Equipment, 5 EM Work Order, 6 Purchase Order, 7 Subcontract and 8 SM Work Order, four of them needing optional modules. A job line asks for job, phase and cost type. A subcontract line takes its job, phase, cost type and unit of measure from the SL item and won't let anyone change them; a PO line fills from the PO item, GL account included; an expense line updates the general ledger and no other module. The draft states the type it picked for every line, and why.

Phases that set themselves up. When a job's phases aren't locked, Vista accepts any phase set up in JC Phases, or a longer code whose valid part is. The first posting to a phase the job has never used sets that phase up on the job automatically, with its description and unit of measure from JC Phases, as long as the cost type is set up for the phase there. A job marked Phases on this Job are Locked takes only phases from JC Job Phases, JC Original Estimates or JC Change Orders. So a mistyped phase on an unlocked job doesn't bounce; it quietly adds a phase. The draft codes only to phases already on the job in your export and flags any line that would add one.

Who reviews it, and when it can post. Invoices keyed into AP Unapproved Invoice Entry collect reviewers on the way in. A reviewer on the vendor's Add'l Info tab in AP Vendors lands on every invoice from that vendor; reviewers on the job in JC Jobs, or on the GL account, equipment department or inventory location, land on the lines that use them. A reviewer with a threshold joins only when the invoice's Gross is over it, or line by line if the group says so. Only when every line is approved in AP Unapproved Invoice Review can AP Unapproved Invoice Posting move the invoice into an AP Transaction Entry batch. Each draft lists the reviewers your setup would add, so a wrong job shows up as the wrong project manager before anyone is asked to approve.

Sub bills, retainage and the hold code. Subcontract invoices often start in the SL Worksheet, where this period's amounts go in, someone checks Ready and runs the SL to AP Update Preview, and the invoices move to AP. A subcontract item can carry one default retainage rate for work completed and another for stored materials, but the AP invoice line has a single retainage field that combines the two. Retainage on a line goes on hold under the retainage hold code in AP Company Parameters and stays out of the payment work file until AP Release Retainage frees it. The draft keeps work completed and stored materials apart, with the retainage on each and the combined figure the line would carry.

Compliance codes that can stop a check. Codes set up in HQ Compliance Codes are checked only when Use This Code to Verify Compliance is on. In SL Compliance each code is a yes or no box or a date with an expiration, and an AP reference number ties a code to one invoice; left blank, it covers them all. Vista checks verified codes on entry, if AP Company Parameters asks for that, or when the invoice comes up for payment, and those parameters decide whether a lapse blocks payment or only warns. Each draft reports what your exported compliance records say about that vendor and subcontract on the invoice date. The person checking these drafts, often whoever runs your Vista payables day to day, will look first at line types, phases a line would add, retainage on sub bills, and vendors whose compliance would hold up payment.

When your reviewer says the drafts meet the success criteria, the same drafting runs on new invoices for about 30 days.

Someone on your AP desk approves, corrects or returns each draft before it goes into Vista. How approved drafts get in is your Vista administrator's choice: typed into AP Unapproved Invoice Entry so your usual reviewers still see them, or brought in with tools you already license. Payment runs, compliance holds and retainage releases stay with your team.