Upcoming Changes to Bills and Invoices in Neat
You'll start to notice improvements that reinforce the difference between Bills and Invoices in your File Cabinet. These structural updates are an important step toward new, more powerful document and workflow features. See a list of upcoming improvements and changes below:Bills vs. Invoices in Neat
The terms Bill and Invoice are often used interchangeably; however, in Neat, the terms will now have very specific meanings.
Bill: Something someone, typically a vendor, sends you in order for you to pay them. Also referred to as a payable.
Invoice: Something you send to someone else, typically a customer, in order for them to pay you. Also referred to as a receivable.
Sending Data to QuickBooks Online (QBO)
Moving forward, users will be able to send Bills to QBO as bills to be paid. Invoices will no longer be able to be sent to QBO (currently, invoices can be sent to QBO as bills to be paid).Auto-Classification
Invoices will no longer be included in auto-classification during file processing. This means that Neat will no longer automatically identify invoices. Auto-classification will treat any file that looks like a Bill or Invoice as a Bill and automatically classify it as a Bill. Moving forward, if you wish to add an invoice to your file cabinet, we recommend that you specify the Invoice file type when capturing or uploading the file to your cabinet.Invoice Field Changes
The Customer field will become the primary field for Invoices, replacing the Vendor field. The Vendor field will remain visible on invoices, in the app, for a limited time, but will be removed in a future update.BUT don’t fret! For now, if you do use the Vendor field in Invoices, continue as you normally would. Neat is working on several enhancements and tools to make it easy to migrate your data from this field to elsewhere, in a way that works for you and your workflows. When we have a more concrete timeline for this field's removal, we will give you plenty of notice!
Before the Vendor field is removed, Neat will provide a tool to help automatically migrate existing Vendor values on invoices to either the Customer field, Notes field, or another field if preferred. Any Vendor data that is not migrated will still be retained with the item, but will no longer be visible or editable. If an invoice is later reclassified as a Receipt or Bill, the original Vendor data will become visible and editable again.
You may discover that you have some bills currently saved as invoices in Neat. We recommend reclassifying any bills that have been saved as invoices so your data accurately reflects how money flows in and out of your financial accounts. Using the correct item type ensures your payables and receivables are tracked properly, keeps your reports accurate, and allows Neat to deliver the most meaningful insights. To learn how to manually review and reclassify invoices, please see this Help Center article: Reviewing and Reclassifying Invoices
Invoice Field Changes FAQs
Q. When is the Vendor field going away?
A. At this time, we do not have an ETA for when the Vendor field will be removed. Neat is still working on several enhancements that will help you migrate invoice vendor data to another field. Once we have a concrete timeline, we will give you plenty of notice!
Q. Is the Vendor field being deleted from invoices? Will I lose the data I am currently storing in the Vendor field?
A. No, the Vendor field and any data stored there is not being deleted. In the future, the Vendor field will be removed from the UI, but the data will still persist behind the scenes. Additionally, Neat is working on a migration tool that will help you migrate your vendor field data to another field such as Customer, Invoice Status, or Notes.
