Editing Invoice Data

Overview

After DocuClipper extracts data from an invoice or receipt PDF, you can edit the extracted fields, change the document type, add or remove line items, and run invoice rules to auto-fill categories or products. This article describes how to edit invoice data on the invoice detail page.

Opening the invoice detail page

From the Invoices list, click a row to open that invoice. The PDF sits on the left and the editable form on the right, under an Export & Sync bar and a row of tabs - Details, Matching, Approvals, Activity, and Rules. The form itself runs document type, vendor/customer and the header fields, then a Line Items section.

Document type

At the top of the form, Document Type tells DocuClipper how to treat the invoice when exporting:

• For QuickBooks: Bill or Expense (payables), or Invoice (receivables).
• For Xero: Bill (ACCPAY) or Sales Invoice (ACCREC).
• For Excel: Bills/Payables or Invoices/Receipts.

Changing document type can change which fields are shown (e.g. Vendor vs Customer) and may trigger invoice rules to run again (e.g. to set categories or products).

Vendor and customer

Edit the Vendor (for bills/expenses/payables) or Customer (for invoices/receivables) as needed. You can type a new name and, when exporting to QuickBooks or Xero, create a new vendor/customer in the accounting app if it doesn’t exist.

Header fields

Depending on document type and export target, you can edit fields such as:

• Invoice number
• Invoice date
• Due date
• Subtotal, Tax and Total

Click in the field and change the value. Changes are saved as you go.

Currency

Under Total, Currency shows the currency the invoice is in. DocuClipper sets it when the invoice prints its currency on the amounts: a sign that belongs to one currency, such as £, € or ₹, a prefixed dollar such as A$ or C$, or a code such as GBP or EUR written against an amount ("GBP 12.00") or as the label's currency ("TOTAL (GBP)", "TOTAL GBP"). A plain $ sign and the addresses on the invoice are not used, so an invoice with only a $ sign, or no currency sign at all, shows Company currency: your accounting company's own currency.

To change it, pick a different currency, or Company currency, from the list. Your choice is saved with the invoice and is what the invoices list and QuickBooks Online or Xero use. Re-running the extraction on the document reads the currency from the document again and replaces a choice made here.

When you sync to QuickBooks Online or Xero, an invoice in a currency other than your company's own is sent in that currency, while one in your company's currency (or Company currency) posts exactly as it always has. A currency is only set when the record is first created: syncing an edit never changes the currency of a record already in QuickBooks or Xero. For a foreign-currency invoice:

• QuickBooks Online needs multicurrency turned on (Settings > Account and settings > Advanced > Currency), and the vendor or customer must be in the invoice's currency, because QuickBooks posts a vendor's or customer's transactions only in that contact's currency. An expense also needs a payment account in that currency.
• Xero needs the currency added under Accounting > Advanced > Currencies (a plan with multi-currency).

If one of these is missing, nothing is created and the Export & Sync panel says what to change. You can also set the currency to Company currency to post the amounts in your company's currency instead.

The Excel and CSV downloads and the QuickBooks Desktop, Sage and Dynamics exports do not carry a currency; for them the currency is shown for reference.

Charges, fees and discounts

Many invoices add amounts between the tax and the total that are not line items: a processing fee, a service charge, shipping, a tip, a discount, or a cash rounding. When the invoice has one, it appears in the Subtotal / Tax / Total row between Tax and Total, under the label the invoice uses (for example Service charge or Net Processing Fees), with discounts shown as negative amounts. Subtotal + Tax + these amounts add up to the Total, which is why the totals check reads Totals match. An invoice with no such amounts shows only Subtotal, Tax and Total.

These amounts are read from the document and are not edited directly. If you change Subtotal, Tax or Total, the row updates to whatever still makes the invoice add up. When the numbers still don't add up, the warning on Subtotal, Tax and Total shows the sum it checked, including the charges, and how far it is from the Total.

The Export & Sync panel tells you when an invoice is missing something an export needs, whether or not you have connected QuickBooks or Xero. With no integration connected, it shows an amber Missing Fields badge beside "No integration connected", followed by the list, for example Missing: Vendor, Date, Invoice #, Total. These fields appear in every Excel, CSV, and IIF export, so fill them in before you download. Line categories are only listed when QuickBooks or Xero is connected, because only those systems require one.

If QuickBooks or Xero is blocking an invoice because its lines have no category, the panel suggests setting a default category once under Project settings → Invoices. That single setting covers every uncategorized line in the project, so you don't have to code each line by hand.

When the project is connected to QuickBooks or Xero, an edit to an already-synced invoice re-syncs automatically - DocuClipper updates the existing record by id, so editing never creates a duplicate. One exception: if the invoice's totals don't add up, automatic sync is paused and the Export & Sync panel shows an "automatic sync is paused" notice with a Sync anyway button, so you can push it if the reconciliation check is wrong. See QuickBooks & Xero two-way sync.

Statements, ledgers and reports

Some documents uploaded as invoices are lists of transactions rather than a single bill: a supplier's statement of account (the invoices, payments and credits on your account), a bank or credit card statement, a general ledger, or an expense report. DocuClipper recognizes these and labels them instead of checking them like an invoice:

• Next to the header fields you see a blue badge - Statement, not an invoice, Bank statement, not an invoice, or Ledger or report, not an invoice - in place of the totals check. Hover it for what the document is and what to do with it.
• Its rows are kept as extracted, one row per transaction. They are not compared with a total and not checked as invoice line items, so a row without a description (a report's subtotal, for example) is not flagged.
• It is not synced to QuickBooks or Xero automatically, because posting a statement as a bill would duplicate the bills it lists. The Export & Sync panel says so and still offers Sync anyway for the rare document that really is a bill.

To record the bills themselves, upload the individual invoices. To get the transactions of a bank or credit card statement, upload it as a bank statement.

Other documents that come with a purchase but are not the bill for it are labelled the same way, with a blue Not an invoice badge: a quote or estimate, a packing list or packing slip, a remittance advice (a list of the invoices a payment covered), an insurer's policy or instalment schedule, and a donation receipt. Their numbers are not checked as an invoice's, and they are not synced automatically. A document that is titled as an invoice is always treated as one, so an invoice that carries a remittance slip for you to return with your payment stays an invoice.

Line items

Line items are the individual rows on the invoice (description, quantity, rate, amount, and for payables often a category, or for receivables a product/service).

Every line carries a description. When the invoice prints no separate description column, the line takes the words printed on its row before the amount ("Customer Charge", "Next 23,300 gallons @ $0.014848 per gallon"); a row that prints only numbers and a product code is described by its product code.

• Edit - Click a line to edit description, amount, category, or product/service. Changes persist to the invoice as you go.
• Add line item - Click Add Line Item to add a new row.
• Delete line item - Remove a line you don’t need (you can’t delete the last remaining line).

For QuickBooks/Xero, line items usually need a category (expense/bill) or product/service (invoice) before syncing.

Utility and phone bills

Utility, phone and internet bills print a lot more than their charges: an account summary, a section per phone line or meter, call and usage detail, rate tiers and a billing history. DocuClipper reads them as a bill:

• Line items come from the charges summary - one line per service or phone line, or the bill's own charges (customer charge, usage, riders). Call records, data usage, meter readings, per-line breakdown pages and the billing-history chart are not line items.
• The total is this bill's charges. When the amount due includes a balance carried over from an earlier bill (previous balance less the payments received), that balance belongs to the earlier bill, so the invoice total is the amount due less the carried balance. The full amount due is kept with the invoice's extra fields as AMOUNT_DUE. Any invoice that prints a previous balance is read the same way, for example a reseller's monthly invoice whose total due adds the account's unpaid balance to this month's charges.
• Each bill is its own invoice. A PDF of several bills becomes one invoice per bill: one per billing period, one per account, and one per service billed under the same account number (a building's water service and its fire line, for example) when each prints its own balance from the last bill and its own amount due. The pages of one bill stay together, and so do the numbered pages of one invoice ("Page 2 of 46") even when each page is a section addressed to a different end customer.
• Tax is counted once. A bill that prints a combined tax line and the per-jurisdiction or per-line taxes it is made of gets the combined amount.
• Charges added on top of the service count toward the total, such as an infrastructure or distribution system improvement charge, a rider, a fuel or purchased gas cost adjustment, and a tax adjustment surcharge.
• An amount printed as a credit (for example "2.59 Credit") is read as negative.

Paid invoices and receipts

Many invoices print how they were paid next to what they charge: a payments table with each card charge or deposit, a down payment taken at the counter, or a folio's amount received. DocuClipper keeps what was billed apart from what was paid:

• Payments are not line items. Rows of a payments table (the method, the amount charged and the amount applied), card payments and deposits applied to the invoice are left out of the line items, however many payments the invoice was split over.
• The total is what was billed. When the invoice was paid in full and prints a balance of 0.00, or prints the balance left after a deposit or payment, the total is the billed amount (subtotal, tax and charges). The balance is kept with the invoice's extra fields as AMOUNT_DUE.
• A discount printed per section and again as their total is counted once, as the total discount.
• Fees printed in the totals block, such as a card processing fee, stay out of the subtotal: the subtotal is the one the invoice prints, and the fee is counted toward the total. This includes charges named by what they are rather than as a fee: a delivery window on a delivery order ("3 hours or less"), a service charge, a tip or gratuity, and a bag charge. A fee printed as free or waived is not counted.

Coding bills to Products & Services instead of Categories

A QuickBooks sales invoice always codes its lines to a Product/Service - that's the only thing QuickBooks accepts on an invoice line. A bill can go either way, so DocuClipper lets you choose. Next to the Line Items heading you'll see:

Map to: ( ) Category ( ) Product/Service

• Category (the default) posts each line to an expense account - QuickBooks calls this the Category details section of a bill.
• Product/Service posts each line to an item from your Products & Services list - QuickBooks calls this Item details. This is what you want if you track construction cost codes, job-costing codes, or parts as items rather than as expense accounts.

The setting is per project, not per invoice: switch it once and every bill in that project uses it, including future ones. Purchase orders follow the same setting.

The QuickBooks setup this requires

QuickBooks will only accept an item on a bill if that item is marked for purchase. In QuickBooks, open the product or service and tick "I purchase this product/service from a vendor", which assigns it an expense account. Items set up for sales only have no expense account, and QuickBooks rejects the whole bill with:

Business Validation Error: There is no account associated with the item "{name}". Is it marked for purchase, and has an account associated with it?

DocuClipper only offers purchasable items in the Product/Service dropdown on a bill, so if your cost codes don't appear there, that checkbox is the reason. Tick it in QuickBooks and they show up immediately - nothing to re-sync on the DocuClipper side.

Apply a value to all line items (bulk-apply)

Multi-line invoices often need the same category, product/service, or tax code on every row. After you set one of these on a single line, DocuClipper shows an Apply to all line items prompt - click it to copy that value to every line at once instead of editing them one by one. You can do this per export target (QuickBooks, Xero, or Excel), and it only touches the classification field you applied, leaving descriptions and amounts alone.

If the invoice has already been synced, the bulk-apply pushes the updated classification back to QuickBooks or Xero automatically - see QuickBooks & Xero two-way sync.

Invoice rules (Automation Rules)

Invoice rules automatically set category (for bills/expenses) or product/service (for invoices) based on vendor, customer, or line description.

• In the Automation Rules panel of the sidebar, click Edit Invoice Rules to open the rules editor: add conditions (e.g. Vendor contains “X”) and set the category or product/service to apply.
• After saving rules, they can run when you change document type or when you trigger “Run rules” (if the UI offers it). Rules apply to the current invoice (and often to new invoices as they are processed).

See Setting up invoice rules for full details.

Bulk actions across invoices

Some actions are faster from the Invoices list than one invoice at a time. Select multiple invoices with the row checkboxes, then:

• Bulk approve / reject - Set the approval status on every selected invoice in one step (with an optional comment). Approving in bulk respects the approval workflow - you must be an approver for the invoices you act on.
• Bulk delete - Remove several invoices (or imported rows) at once.

What to do next

After editing:

• Sync to QuickBooks or Xero - When the project is connected, approved invoices sync automatically and your edits re-sync by id - there's no separate "Import" step to click. The Export & Sync panel shows the current state (Synced, Error, Missing Fields, or Not Synced) and offers Sync anyway if a totals check paused it (see How to import invoices and receipts into QuickBooks Online and Export invoices to Xero).
• Download to Excel or CSV - Click Download Excel / CSV in the Export & Sync bar. It is the bar's blue button until the project is connected to QuickBooks or Xero; after that the bar leads with the sync status and the same download sits beside it as Excel. Pick XLSX or CSV, check the preview and click Download (see How to convert invoice and receipts to Excel). With nothing connected, Sync to QuickBooks / Xero next to it opens the connection window.
• Match to bank transactions - On the Matching tab, the Bank Transaction Matching card shows the payment DocuClipper found on the project's statements, with Confirm match; Match to Bank Transactions picks one by hand (see Invoice to bank transaction matching guide).
• Match to purchase order - Use the PO matching option in the sidebar (see Invoice to purchase order matching guide).
• Submit for approval - Use the Approvals section (see Invoice approval workflow).

FAQs

Do I have to save my edits?

No. Changes to the header fields are saved as you go.

Will editing a synced invoice create a duplicate in QuickBooks or Xero?

No. DocuClipper updates the existing record by id, so an edit re-syncs in place. See QuickBooks & Xero two-way sync.

Why does the Export & Sync panel say automatic sync is paused?

The invoice's totals don't add up, so DocuClipper holds the sync rather than pushing figures that don't reconcile. If the check is wrong, use Sync anyway to push it regardless. Statements, ledgers, reports and other documents that are not invoices are never synced automatically either - see Statements, ledgers and reports.

Why does my document say "Statement, not an invoice"?

It lists the invoices, payments and credits on an account instead of billing you once, so its rows are transactions rather than line items. DocuClipper labels it instead of checking its totals, and does not sync it automatically. Upload the individual invoices to record each bill.

Why does my document say "Not an invoice"?

It is titled as a quote, packing list, remittance advice, policy or instalment schedule, or donation receipt, so it describes a purchase without billing you for it. DocuClipper labels it instead of checking its totals and does not sync it automatically. Upload the invoice or receipt for the purchase to record it; if the document really is the bill, use Sync anyway in the Export & Sync panel.

Why is a utility bill's total lower than its amount due?

The amount due includes a balance carried over from an earlier bill. That balance was billed then, so DocuClipper records this bill at its own charges and keeps the full amount due under AMOUNT_DUE in the invoice's extra fields. See Utility and phone bills.

Why is a paid invoice's total not 0.00?

The invoice prints the balance left after it was paid. DocuClipper records the invoice at the amount it billed, so it posts to your books at its real value, and keeps the printed balance under AMOUNT_DUE in the invoice's extra fields. See Paid invoices and receipts.

Why is there a Service charge (or fee, or discount) next to Tax?

The invoice charges or credits an amount outside its line items, such as a processing fee, shipping, a tip or a discount. DocuClipper shows it between Tax and Total so the row adds up the way the invoice does. See Charges, fees and discounts.

What does Document Type change?

How the invoice is treated on export - Bill or Expense versus Invoice for QuickBooks, Bill (ACCPAY) versus Sales Invoice (ACCREC) for Xero. It also changes which fields appear (Vendor versus Customer) and can re-run invoice rules.

Can I create a new vendor in my accounting system from here?

Yes. Type a new vendor or customer name, and when you export to QuickBooks or Xero it can be created there if it doesn't already exist.

What are the tabs on the invoice detail page?

Details (the extracted fields), Matching (POs and bank transactions), Approvals, Activity, and Rules.

Activity is the invoice's history, newest first: when it was extracted, matched, submitted and approved, and every file export of its job (Excel, CSV, IIF and the other download formats). A completed export shows in green with who exported it; an export that did not complete shows in red as Export to CSV failed (or the format you chose), so you can tell whether a file was actually produced. QuickBooks and Xero sync results show on the Export & Sync panel instead.

Related articles

• Using the Invoices list - Tabs, columns, and opening an invoice.
• Setting up invoice rules - Automate categories and products.
• Downloading invoices and receipts - Bulk download and custom columns.