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Processing Bills

From upload to sync: How JACK scans, matches and moves your bills through to payment.

Written by Cara

Overview

All bills must be entered into JACK before they're recorded against the job budget and cashflow reporting. Once entered a bill moves through a simple workflow: draft, approval, then a sync with your accounting software.

You can add bills from within a Job > Job Financials > Bills tab > or from the global Finance > Bills area, which lists bills, purchase orders and other financials across all jobs.

There are three ways to get a bill into JACK:

  • Upload a PDF of the bill/invoice

  • Email the bill directly into JACK

  • Create manually

Uploading or Emailing a Bill

To save time processing supplier or subcontractor bills, upload or email them directly into JACK. JACK scans the bill and automatically extracts the supplier name, invoice date, due date, reference number, and total.

To upload:

  1. Navigate to Finance > Bills.

  2. Locate the Upload box.

  3. Drag and drop the file in, or click Browse to select one from your local drive.

To email:

  1. Click to display your unique JACK email address. This is the To address.

  2. Add safe senders so bills can be emailed in and uploaded automatically in this menu ( or Settings > OCR). This is the From address in which the email sends.

Uploaded or emailed bills appear under the Draft tab until reviewed.

⚠️ Emailed Bills will not appear unless you have added the From address in our Safe Senders list.

Matching the Bill to a Supplier

When a bill is scanned, JACK checks the supplier name against existing contacts.

If the supplier isn't recognized:

  1. A Create New Supplier prompt appears.

  2. Confirm the supplier name and select a type (Supplier or Subcontractor), or link it to an existing supplier instead.

  3. JACK shows a list of name variations it detected on the bill. These are saved as Supplier Aliases — so the next time any of these variations are scanned, JACK matches them to this supplier automatically.

💡 Aliases are useful when a supplier's invoices use a logo or shortened name instead of their full registered name. Once set, you won't need to manually reassign that supplier again.

Aliases can also be managed anytime from the supplier's contact record, under Bill Settings. See Supplier Rules & Bill Settings for details.

Duplicate Bill Detection

If a bill is entered with the same supplier and reference number as an existing bill, JACK flags it as a duplicate.

  • A red Duplicate notice appears on the bill.

  • Clicking the notice shows you the matching bill so you can compare before proceeding.

ℹ️ This check runs before approval, so duplicates are caught early rather than after they've been processed.

Linking to a Purchase Order

When uploading or emailing a bill to JACK-If the bill has a Purchase Order reference number on it, JACK scans for that number and automatically links the bill to the matching PO and job.

  • The linked PO appears as a hyperlink on the bill, which opens the PO for review or edits before you finish processing the bill.

Bill Details

Many of these can be auto-filled from Supplier Rules. While processing a bill manually, confirm or complete:

  • Link to a Job or set to Not Job Related

  • Reference number

  • Invoice date and due date

  • Tax rate

  • Link to account in your accounting software

  • Optional link to a purchase order

  • Optional bill approver(s) (see Bill Approvals Article)

  • Optional attached files

Checking Scanned Line Items Against the Bill Total

When JACK scans a bill, it captures both the bill total and the individual line items. If these two don't match, JACK flags it so you can catch the discrepancy before approval.

To resolve a mismatch:

  • Edit the line items manually so they add up to the correct total, or

  • Click Use Scanned Bill Total to collapse all line items into a single line matching the scanned total.

💡 This is especially useful for bills with long itemized lists (e.g. a timber supply invoice) where you only care about the total, not every line. Pair this with the "don't extract line items" supplier rule to skip this step automatically in future.

When Manually Creating a Bill use the button. Then choose the button to create a line item.

Set the Description, Qty, Unit Price and Tax Rate then choose Save and Close.

Some suppliers send invoices with dozens of line items you do not need to budget one by one. In Edit Line Items, tick 'Don't extract line items on this Supplier' and JACK asks 'Apply Collate to This Bill?'. Choose Yes, Collate and the lines collapse into one clean total. You also set Amounts Are to Inclusive or Exclusive of Taxes here, so they are read the same way every time.

Linking a Bill to Job Costings

Link the bill's line items to budget items or PO items so costs flow through to the job budget. Choose the button.

  1. In the Bill Items menu on the left, choose the + icon. You can link a single bill line item to a single budget item, or link multiple bill items to one budget item.

  2. Choose the link icon on the right to connect it to the corresponding budget or PO item.

  3. The Remaining amount updates automatically as you link items, and reflects in the job budget.

    • Remaining shown in red = over budget.

    • Remaining shown in green = still under budget.

  4. To fix a mistake, unlink individual items or all items, then relink correctly.

  5. Click Save and Close.

Bill Statuses and Tabs

1. Draft

When a bill is uploaded or entered manually, it will appear in Draft status.

  • Bills in this stage may be incomplete or awaiting verification.

  • Drafts can be found under Finance > Bills > Draft.

  • You can edit details such as the job, supplier, and budget links.

  • Once reviewed, click Needs Approval to move the bill forward.

2. Awaiting Approval

Bills marked as Awaiting Approval are ready for internal review.

  • These may need validation from a manager or admin.

  • You can still edit allocations or supporting information.

  • Once approved, click Approve for Payment to progress the bill.

3. Hold Payment

If a bill needs to be paused for review or clarification, you can set its status to Hold Payment.

  • This removes the bill from the list of items to be synced to QuickBooks.

  • Use Hold when waiting for revised invoices, credit notes, or disputed charges to be resolved.

  • You can move a bill off Hold at any time to resume normal processing.

4. Approved for Payment

Once approved, the bill is ready to be sent to QuickBooks.

  • Approved bills appear in Finance > Bills > Approved for Payment.

  • When you sync JACK App with QuickBooks these bills are created in QuickBooks as Unpaid.

  • Review and pay them from QuickBooks when ready.

5. Paid

After a bill is paid in QuickBooks, syncing again will automatically update its status in JACK App to Paid.

  • Paid bills appear under Finance > Bills > Paid.

  • This final status locks the bill for editing and updates job budgets accordingly.

6. Rejected

Used when a bill needs to be sent back to the supplier as incorrect.

  • Change the status to Rejected from Finance > Bills > select the bill > Reject, then enter a reason.

  • The supplier gets an email with the bill attached and your reason; rejected bills don't push through to QuickBooks. This is also recorded in the historical comments section of the Bill.

7. Not Job Related

Not a formal documented status but in practice a bill doesn't need to be linked to a job.

  • It can be processed for overhead costs (insurance, rent, etc) without linking to a job budget item or PO.

8. Back Charges

Bills organized under this tab are set to recover a cost from a subcontractor who caused damage or made a mistake, instead of absorbing it as a job loss.

  • The bill must be Approved first, then create the Back Charge against it, choosing the subcontractor and the bill items to charge.

  • This creates a credit against those items in the job budget and QuickBooks, and can email the subcontractor a copy.

  • To create a back charge navigate to Finance > Bills > Paid > Click into Bill >

9. Credit Notes

When a supplier or contractor credits you; for example for returned materials or an over-billed amount.

  • Create it the same way as a standard bill, but enter a negative quantity so it produces a negative amount.

  • Once approved and synced, it shows under the Credit Notes tab in Finance and against the job budget with a status of Credit Note.

Syncing Bills to Your Accounting Software

You will first need JACK Connected to Quickbooks along with the Vendor contact connected to Quickbooks-Refer to this article for more details on How to Connect To QuickBooks and this article on Connect a Sub/Supplier to Quickbooks for processing Bills.

  1. Navigate to Finance > Bills > Open any Bill. In the top right, click to open the sync window.

  2. Use to send bills and client invoices across. Use to pull in changes made on the other side (e.g. a bill marked paid).

  3. Sync issues display an error message in the right-hand column.

  4. A bill not yet synced shows a green New icon.

⚠️ If a bill's status is Hold or Rejected, it will not be pushed to your accounting software.

⚠️ A bill already entered directly in your accounting software cannot be linked back to JACK retroactively.

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