To facilitate invoice payments, Brightflag provides multiple Accounts Payable (AP) export options to integrate with your AP system efficiently.
📌 Key Features:
✔️ Customizable AP routing based on jurisdictions, entities, or business units.
✔️ Multiple export options to fit your company’s AP process.
✔️ Automated payment status updates through AP Reverse Feed.
🔹 AP Integration Methods in Brightflag
Brightflag offers three primary methods to integrate with your Accounts Payable system:
1️⃣ API Integration (Automated AP Processing)
📌 Best For: Companies looking for fully automated invoice processing.
- Invoices are automatically sent to your AP system via API for faster processing.
- Requires initial engineering setup between Brightflag and your IT team.
- Supports error handling between Brightflag and your AP system.
💡 Tip: This is preferable to SFTP automation, as it allows for real-time error transmission between systems.
2️⃣ AP Email Integration
📌 Best For: Companies preferring manual invoice processing via email.
- Upon final approval, an email with the original invoice PDF is sent to a designated AP email address.
- The AP team manually processes the invoice for payment.
📌 Key Benefit: No technical setup required—simple email-based integration.
3️⃣ AP Batch Export (Bulk Invoice Processing)
📌 Best For: Companies looking to process multiple invoices in bulk.
Approved invoices are grouped into a batch and sent to AP for bulk payment processing.
✅ Key Benefits:
- Increases efficiency by processing invoices in groups.
- Simplifies payment tracking and auditing.
- Each batch is tagged with a unique ID and timestamp for easy reference.
🔹 AP Batch Export Methods
Brightflag supports three ways to export AP batches:
| Export Type | Description | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Manual Export | An admin downloads the batch file from Brightflag. | Small businesses or companies with manual AP workflows. |
| Scheduled Email Export | A recurring batch file is automatically sent via email to the AP team. | Mid-size companies with a dedicated AP email for invoice processing. |
| Scheduled SFTP Export | The batch file is automatically sent to a secure SFTP server. | Large enterprises requiring automated uploads to payment systems. |
📌 Note: Brightflag can host the SFTP server or allow integration with your existing SFTP setup.
🔹 What’s Included in an AP Batch Export?
Each AP batch can include the following information:
| Export Component | Details | Use Case |
|---|---|---|
| Batch File (.csv/.xlsx/.xml/.data) | Contains invoice details (invoice number, subtotal, law firm, legal entity, tax data, etc.). | Used by AP teams for bulk payment processing. |
| Original Invoice PDFs | PDFs of vendor-submitted invoices. | Required in APAC & EMEA for tax audit records. |
| Invoice Summary PDFs | Auto-generated invoice summaries with approval history. | Helps AP teams with OCR processing & record-keeping. |
🔹 Tracking Invoice Payments: AP Reverse Feed
💰 How to Track Payments in Brightflag?
- Vendors often ask when their invoices will be paid.
- The AP Reverse Feed enables your AP team to send invoice status updates to Brightflag.
- Updates include:
✅ New Invoice Status: (e.g., Paid ➡️ "Paid" in Brightflag, Void ➡️ "Rejected" in Brightflag)
✅ Payment Note: (e.g., Payment Date, Payment Reference)
🔄 How it Works:
1️⃣ Your AP team sends the invoice status feed to an SFTP server or via our API.
2️⃣ Brightflag automatically updates invoice statuses in the system.
📌 Benefit: Reduces manual tracking inquiries and ensures vendors have real-time payment updates.