Overview
All bills must be entered into JACK before they're recorded against the job budget and cashflow reporting. This article walks through the everyday flow: getting a bill into JACK, matching it to the right supplier, completing the details and linking it to your job costings.
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
Step 1: Get the Bill into JACK
Manually create:
Choose the +Bill button
Manually enter in all Bill information
To upload:
Navigate to Finance > Bills.
Locate the 'Drop files here or browse to upload' box.
Drag and drop the file in, or click Browse to select one from your local drive.
To email:
Click the 'Email your bills directly..'
icon to display your unique JACK email address. This is the To address.Add safe senders so bills can be emailed in and uploaded automatically, from this menu or Settings > OCR. This is the From address the email sends from.
Uploaded or emailed bills appear under the Draft tab until reviewed.
JACK scans the bill and automatically extracts the supplier name, invoice date, due date, reference number and total.
⚠️ Emailed bills won't appear unless you've added the From address to your Safe Senders list.
💡 Pro Tip: 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 so you can review it before finishing.
Step 2: Match the Bill to a Supplier
When a bill is uploaded or emailed, JACK checks the supplier name against existing contacts.
If the supplier isn't recognized:
A Create New Supplier prompt appears.
Confirm the supplier name and select a type (Supplier or Subcontractor), or link it to an existing supplier instead.
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. Manage aliases anytime from the supplier's contact record, under Bill Settings — see Supplier Rules & Bill Settings.
ℹ️ Good to know: If a bill is entered with the same supplier and reference number as an existing bill, JACK flags it as a duplicate with a red notice. Clicking it shows the matching bill so you can compare before proceeding. This check runs before approval, so duplicates are caught early.
Step 3: Complete the Bill Details
While processing a bill manually or after upload/email, confirm or complete:
Link to a Job, or set to Not Job Related
Reference number(this pushes over to QuickBooks for your book keeper)
Invoice date and due date
Tax rate
Choose a Chart of account in your accounting software. Optional checkbox for if you will sync this Bill to QuickBooks or keep it local
Optional link to a purchase order instead of the job's budget directly.
Optional bill approver(s) — see Bill Approvals
Optional attached files
With Manual Bill Creation:
To enter the bills line items, use the
button. Then choose the
button.
Set the Description, Quantity, Unit Price and Tax Rate then choose Save and Close.
With an Uploaded/Emailed Bill:
Check 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 don't match, JACK flags it so you can catch the discrepancy before approval. Displaying the Scanned Total in Red.
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.
Step 4: Link the Bill to Job Costings
Link the bill's line items to a job's budget items or PO items so costs flow through to the job budget.
Choose the Link Bill to Job Costings button.
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.
Expand your Cost Groups/Cost Codes and choose the link icon on the right to connect it to the corresponding budget or PO item.
The Remaining amount updates automatically as you link items, and reflects in the job budget. Remaining shown in red means over budget; green means still under budget.
To fix a mistake, unlink individual items or all items, then relink correctly.
Click Save and Close.
Step 5: Submit for Approval
Once everything looks right, choose the Approve button at the bottom of your bill. If you've set up bill approvers, see Bill Approvals for how routing works.
💡Tip: Skip syncing your Bills to your accounting software. If it works for your workflow you can mark bills as paid directly in JACK. Check out this article for more details: Manually Marking Bills as Paid
ℹ️ For what happens after approval, including all the statuses a bill can move through, see Bill Statuses & Lifecycle. To send approved bills to your accounting software, see How Bills Push to QuickBooks.