Match and approve supplier bills with the bills agent

Overview#

The bills agent handles the first pass on supplier bills. Forward a bill email to your company's bills address, or type the bill in. TradesWork matches each line to the purchase order and to what was actually received (a 3-way match), explains any mismatch, and puts the bill in Approvals. If a supplier now charges more than your pricebook cost, it proposes a draft pricebook update with the bills as evidence. Approving a bill marks it approved for payment in TradesWork. It doesn't pay the bill or send it to your accounting system.

Before you start#

• Who can see bills: owners, admins, accounting, dispatchers and viewers.

• Who can enter and correct bills, and change matching settings: owners, admins and accounting.

• Who can approve or reject bills: owners, admins and accounting.

• Forwarding address: needs inbound email set up on the server. If it isn't, the page says "Email forwarding isn't set up on this server yet" and you enter bills by hand.

• Reading forwarded bills uses AI. If AI isn't connected, is off, or the Bills (AP) agent is Off, a forwarded bill is stored as Needs entry with a note, and you type its lines in. Nothing is guessed. Matching never needs AI.

• Matching works best when your vendors and purchase orders are in TradesWork and items were received against the PO.

• Find it under Accounting › Accounts Payable › Bills, or the Bills (AP) tab on Automated Campaigns.

Steps#

Set up the forwarding address#

1. Go to Accounting › Accounts Payable › Bills.

2. Copy the address in the Forwarding address panel.

3. Ask your suppliers to send bills there, or set a forwarding rule in your own inbox.

4. If the address leaks or gets spam, click New address. The old one stops working right away.

Enter a bill by hand#

1. Click Enter a bill.

2. Fill in Vendor (required), Bill number, PO number, Bill date, Due date, Tax ($) and Total ($).

3. Add each line: SKU, Description, Qty, Unit cost ($). Blank rows are ignored.

4. Click Save and match. The bill is matched straight away.

Review a bill#

1. On the Bills page, To review shows open bills; All bills shows everything. Each row has Received, Vendor, Bill, PO, Total and Status, plus how many lines need checking.

2. Statuses:

   • Needs entry: the lines haven't been entered or read yet.

   • No PO match: no purchase order found (unknown vendor, PO number not found, or no open PO shares items).

   • Doesn't match: matched a PO, but something is off.

   • Matched: lines agree with the PO and what was received.

   • Approved or Rejected.

3. Click the vendor name to open the bill. The Match card links to the PO and lists every finding in plain words, for example "billed 10 but 8 received".

4. Each line shows PO / received, the Pricebook cost and a Match badge: Matches PO and receipt, Costs more than the PO, Billed more than received, Not received yet, Not on the PO, or No PO.

5. If the bill total doesn't equal its lines plus tax, the Match card says so.

6. For forwarded bills, the Forwarded email card shows the original text.

Correct, approve or reject#

1. If the bill was read wrong or needs entry, use Correct the bill (or Enter the bill) at the bottom and click Save and match. It is matched again and its approval proposal is refreshed.

2. Click Approve or Reject at the top of the bill. You can also approve from Approvals, where the bills agent posts each bill with its match as the reason.

3. A bill must have lines before it can be approved. Decided bills can't be edited.

Handle supplier cost increases#

1. When a billed unit cost is above the pricebook cost by more than your threshold, a proposal appears in Approvals under Bills (AP): "supplier costs went up … draft a pricebook update". It lists each item, old cost to new cost, and the bills that show it.

2. Click Approve to create a pricebook draft with the new costs. Prices don't change until someone reviews and publishes that draft in Pricebook. Click Undo within 24 hours to discard the draft.

3. Services are never updated this way; only materials and equipment.

Settings that change this#

• Matching panel on the Bills page: Flag cost increases above (%) (default 3%) and Bill total may differ from its lines by ($) (default $5.00; the same allowance is used when comparing a line's unit cost with the PO). Click Save.

• Settings › AI › AI Assistants & Data Preferences: the Bills (AP) agent mode. Off stops reading forwarded bills and stops proposals.

Tips#

• Put the PO number on every purchase order you send. Bills that quote it match directly.

• Receive items against the PO when they arrive, so the bill can be checked against what you actually got.

• Use All bills to look back at approved bills by vendor.

Troubleshooting#

• A forwarded bill shows Needs entry with "AI isn't connected". Cause: no AI on the server. Fix: enter the lines by hand.

• "isn't one of your vendors". Cause: the vendor name on the bill doesn't match a vendor in TradesWork. Fix: correct the Vendor field to your vendor's name and save.

• Approve is missing. Cause: the bill is still Needs entry, already decided, or your role can't approve.

• I approved on the bill page but it's still in Approvals. Cause: the Approvals item isn't closed when you decide on the bill page. Fix: approving it again does nothing harmful; Reject it to clear it.

FAQ#

Does approving pay the supplier or sync to QuickBooks? No. It records the approval in TradesWork only. Pay the bill and record it in your accounting system as you do today.

Does the AI see supplier contact details? Phone numbers and emails are removed before the text is read.

Can I upload a PDF? Not directly. Forward the email, or type the bill in.

Coming from ServiceTitan#

ServiceTitan keeps AP bills under Accounting › Accounts Payable › Bills, and TradesWork uses the same place in the menu. What's new is the forwarding address, the line-by-line 3-way match with plain-language findings, and cost-increase proposals that feed a pricebook draft. Paying bills and exporting them to accounting aren't part of this yet.