What it produces
Coded, approved invoices in the ERP and a clean weekly job cost ledger.
Workflows
Invoice Coding to Job Cost
the assignment of each vendor invoice line to a job, cost code, and cost type so construction costs post to the right project
The job in one minute
Who owns it
AP enters and maintains the coding tables; each job's reviewer (usually the PM) approves; the project accountant owns month-end job cost.
How often
Daily for intake and coding, weekly or monthly for corrections.
Why it hurts
A wrong code is worth more than the invoice. One dollar on the wrong job moves two jobs' percent complete and, through the WIP, two jobs' revenue. A sub's invoice coded as material skips retainage, waivers and the insurance check on its way to a check. Coding happens from memory: one supplier sells to eleven jobs and the invoice names none of them. Approvals sit in a superintendent's inbox for nine days, and every fix means a second round of entries.
Systems it touches
The ERP's AP entry and job cost screens, Outlook, AP and OCR tools, Excel coding sheets, SharePoint, banking portals, Procore or Unifier, Power BI, and P6 or Microsoft Project.
AP automation tools are great at getting text off the page. The agent adds the construction part: the full three-part key, checked against a live budget, entered on the ERP screen.
- ERP's AP entry and job cost screens
- Outlook
- AP
- OCR tools
- Excel coding sheets
- SharePoint
- Banking portals
- Procore or Unifier
- Power BI
- P6 or Microsoft Project
12 steps · 5 actions · 5 decisions · 2 human reviews
The workflow, step by step
Action Decision Human review Select a step in the flowchart to jump to it.
-
Action · Portal
Collect invoices from the AP inbox and supplier portals, save each file and check for duplicates.
-
Action · Agent
Read the header and every line: vendor, invoice number, date, job or ship-to, PO, description, amounts, tax, freight.
-
Decision · Agent
The vendor is active and the remit-to address matches. A changed remit-to goes to a person first.
-
Decision · Agent
Route by type: PO invoices take the match path, sub billings take the pay app path, everything else goes to coding.
-
Decision · Agent
Code in order: from the PO or subcontract line, then the vendor coding table, then the job number or ship-to plus the item-category table.
-
Decision · Agent
The job is open, the code is active and budgeted, the cost type is allowed, tax and freight follow the allocation table, the amount is within the reviewer's limit.
-
Action · ERP
Enter the coded invoice in the ERP and attach the PDF.
-
Human review · Reviewer
The job's reviewer approves or recodes, and the invoice posts. Each recode becomes a suggested table row for the AP lead.
-
Action · Agent
Weekly, export posted job cost detail.
-
Decision · Agent
Sweep for miscodes: material on labor-only codes, sub vendors outside a subcontract, zero-budget codes, closed jobs, negative actuals, unsupported splits.
-
Human review · PM
The PM confirms the right code for each flagged line.
-
Action · Agent
Post the correcting entry and verify both codes show the change.
✓ Done
Rules vs judgment
- Coding carried from POs and subcontracts, vendor and item tables, open job and budgeted code checks, approval limits, sweep criteria.
- Free-text line descriptions, job names written three ways, delivery tickets, credit memos, whether an invoice is really a sub's billing. A rule still decides.
- Shared costs split across jobs, whether a vendor needs a subcontract, every recode after posting, and anything in a closed period.
When it stops
-
Invoice names no job and no PO
Goes to AP with the vendor's recent job history. No default job.
-
Vendor table conflicts with the PO
The PO wins and the conflict is logged.
-
Remit-to changed
Stopped for a person to verify with contact details already on file.
-
Code not budgeted on the job
The reviewer picks another or project controls adds budget.
-
Reviewer on leave
Escalates to the backup after the set wait.
-
Adjustment posts to one side only
The run stops and the record shows what posted.
What you end up with
Job cost you can trust at month-end, a coding table that gets smarter with every approved recode, reviewers who see each line's coding source and remaining budget, and a weekly sweep that catches mistakes while they are still one transaction deep. Product →
Questions
How does the agent learn our coding habits?
From a table built from your posted history and approved by the AP lead. Recodes become suggestions. Nothing changes without approval.
What about one invoice covering several jobs?
It splits by PO line or delivery ticket when they name the jobs. Otherwise the reviewer decides, because a guessed split is just a miscode with better formatting.
Does coding affect billing?
Yes. On cost-to-cost jobs, cost drives earned revenue on the WIP, and on cost-plus work coded cost is what the owner pays. WIP Schedule →
Explore related ERP and process automation
No prompts. No babysitting. No Integrations.