Workflows

Vendor Invoices & COI

the approval of vendor invoices for payment and the tracking of each vendor's certificate of insurance to keep coverage current

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The job in one minute

What it produces

Clean invoices entered with coding and the PDF, submitted to your approval workflow, plus a live certificate file with renewals requested before expiration.

Who owns it

The AP specialist owns intake, matching and entry. The property manager approves invoices and overages. The maintenance supervisor closes the work orders the match depends on. The vendor manager onboards vendors and places holds.

How often

Daily. The Atlas plans 2 to 16 hours a day per invoice process and 8 to 35 hours a day for certificates. Hours are planning estimates.

  • 01invoice arrives
  • 02invoice matched
  • 03coverage confirmed
  • 04with a small check animating across

Why it hurts

The same invoice arrives three ways: email, vendor portal and paper. It is 10452 on one, 10452-R on another, 0010452 on the third. An exact-match check passes all three.

Work orders add a trap: billing for an open job, a different unit, or more than the not-to-exceed. Insurance adds another. A certificate in the file is information only. It does not prove additional insured status or promise cancellation notice.

BeforeWith the agent

Systems it touches

  • Yardi Voyager
  • RealPage
  • MRI
  • AppFolio
  • Entrata
  • Buildium
  • Vendor portals
  • Credentialing services
  • Bank portals
  • Outlook
  • Excel
  • SharePoint

12 steps · 4 actions · 6 decisions · 2 human reviews

The workflow, step by step

Action Decision Human review Select a step in the flowchart to jump to it.

Watch it recordedCertificate of insurance monitoring in RealPage Vendor Credentialing

  1. Action · Portal

    Collect invoices from the AP mailbox, vendor portals and scanned mail with received times.

  2. Action · Agent

    Read each invoice into fields: vendor, number, dates, amount, property, unit, PO or work order, lines.

  3. Decision · Agent

    A missing or low-confidence field goes to review.

  4. Decision · Agent

    Vendor active and valid for that owner entity and property.

  5. Decision · Agent

    Duplicate test in three passes: exact number, normalized number, then same vendor, amount and property within a date window.

  6. Decision · Agent

    PO within price and quantity tolerance, or work order complete, same vendor and under the not-to-exceed.

  7. Decision · Agent

    Coverage in force on the service date, limits meet the trade's row, right certificate holder, endorsement on file where required.

  8. Human review · Any failure

    Any failure goes to AP with invoice, PO or work order, and certificate side by side.

  9. Action · Agent

    Enter the invoice with coding and the PDF, and submit it to approval.

  10. Action · Agent

    Each day, read expiration dates and request renewals 30 days out.

  11. Decision · Agent

    At expiration with no renewal, place the vendor on hold for new work.

  12. Human review · Any certificate

    Any certificate shortfall, or a certificate that arrives as a photo, goes to the AP lead.

✓ Done

See it done in the Gallery

Rules vs judgment

The agent holds and routes. Rejecting an invoice is a message about money, and a person sends it.

  1. Exact rule

    • Duplicate passes and normalization
    • PO tolerance and not-to-exceed tests
    • Coverage dates against service dates
    • Required limits by trade and renewal schedule

  2. The model reads

    • Invoice PDFs, scans and photos
    • Trade shorthand on line items
    • Certificate fields and checkboxes
    • "Updated invoice attached" emails

  3. A person decides

    • Any suspected duplicate
    • Overages and out-of-tolerance invoices
    • Work done while coverage lapsed
    • Insurance waivers for a vendor or job

When it stops

Held

  1. 01

    Document type is read before the duplicate pass.

  2. 02

    The match reads status history, not just current status.

  3. 03

    Each line is tied to its insurer before dates are compared.

Resolved

  1. 04

    It goes to review and is never re-coded silently.

  2. 05

    The second invoice is held as a suspected duplicate.

  3. 06

    It replaces the unpaid original instead of sitting beside it.

What you end up with

Invoices entered once, matched to real work, from vendors who were covered when they did it. A certificate file that requests its own renewals, and duplicate and coverage exception reports your controller can review.

Questions

Does this replace our invoice capture tool?

It does not have to. Keep native capture where it works. The agent adds the cross-channel duplicate test, the work order and coverage checks, and certificate follow-up.

What goes in the insurance requirements table?

One row per trade, with minimum limits per line and whether an additional insured or waiver of subrogation endorsement is required. A landscaper and a roofer get different rows.

What if coverage lapsed after the work was done?

The check uses the service date. Work done while the policy was in force passes. The vendor stays on hold for new work until a current certificate arrives.

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