Datamolino's automation is built around one simple idea: the system watches how you code your invoices and reuses that coding next time. You do not have to set anything up in advance. The moment you code your first invoice for a supplier, Datamolino remembers the ledger account, tax code, and tracking categories you chose - and applies them automatically to every future invoice from that same supplier.

No. Datamolino will start learning from your very first coded invoice. Setup is optional - it just lets you skip the first round of manual coding when you already know how a supplier should be coded.

Open the folder, then go to Folder menu > Accounting and Automation.

You'll find the automation panel for a single supplier directly in the invoice view, above the supplier contact.

Every document in Datamolino can be viewed and exported in one of three ways. The view you pick controls which fields automation fills in and what gets sent to your accounting software.

Start in Invoice Total. It is the default for new documents and the simplest place to fill in the coding that becomes your supplier default. Switch to Tax Summary or Line Items only when the invoice needs that level of detail.

No. If most of your invoices for a folder need a specific view (for example, every supplier in a folder needs line-item detail), set that view as the folder default. New documents in that folder will open in the view you chose. See Folder defaults: set starting values for new documents.

Supplier defaults are the core of Datamolino automation. Once you code an invoice for a supplier - choosing the ledger account, tax code, tracking categories, and any other coding fields - those choices are saved as that supplier's defaults. The next invoice from the same supplier opens already coded, and you only intervene if something needs to change.

Because the first coded invoice becomes the baseline, getting that first invoice right is worth a few extra seconds. Everything after it inherits from what you did the first time.

Datamolino will remember it. Once you code an invoice for a supplier, that coding becomes the supplier's default and is applied automatically to every future invoice from the same supplier. See Supplier defaults: auto-code documents by supplier.

Code the first one the way you want, then apply the supplier's settings to the other invoices already waiting in the folder. The supplier defaults article explains how to backfill automation across documents that are already in the Ready state.

Supplier defaults learn from the first invoice. Folder defaults work the other way round: they set a coding pattern as the starting point for every new supplier in that folder, before any invoice has been processed.

This is useful when most of your documents follow a consistent pattern - for example, the same default ledger account, the same tax code, or the same view detail. Instead of setting that pattern supplier by supplier, you set it once at folder level and every new supplier inherits it.

Folder defaults sit underneath supplier defaults in the order of precedence: if a supplier has its own default, the supplier default wins. Folder defaults are the fallback for suppliers that have not been coded yet.

Yes. Set View detail to Line Items in the folder defaults. New documents in that folder will open in Line Items view automatically. See Folder defaults: set starting values for new documents.

If you export at line-item level, automation works in two layers. The first layer is exact-match learning: when you code a line item with a specific description, Datamolino remembers the coding against that exact description and applies it next time the same description appears.

The second layer is keyword rules. Exact-match learning only fires when the description is identical. If a supplier's line-item descriptions vary every time - because they include a date, an invoice number, or some other variable text - exact-match alone will not catch them. Keyword rules let you match on part of the description (for example, the word "subscription" or a project code) and apply coding to those exceptions.

Exact-match learning needs an exact match on the line description. If the description changes between invoices - even by a single character - the system treats it as a new line and falls back to supplier defaults. For descriptions that vary, set up a keyword rule. See Automate line items and Keyword rules: auto-code documents by keyword.

Some suppliers send invoices that need to be split across several accounts every time - for example, a utility bill split between two cost centres, or a rent invoice split by department. Bill Split rules let you define how a supplier's invoices should be split automatically, so the split happens before you even open the document.

Bill Split is configured per supplier and runs as part of automation. When a Bill Split rule applies, it takes priority over line-item automation for that document.

Bill Split is covered in its own article

When an invoice contains more than one VAT rate, a single line of coding cannot represent it correctly. That is what the Tax Summary view is for: one coding line per VAT rate, so each rate can carry its own tax code.

You still start in Invoice Total to set the supplier's overall coding. When you switch to Tax Summary, the supplier's default coding is copied across to each tax line. You only adjust the lines that need a different tax code. The moment you change a tax code on a Tax Summary line, Datamolino remembers that change against the supplier and the VAT rate, so the correct code applies next time an invoice from the same supplier has the same rate.

Supplier defaults apply one tax code per supplier. That works for the most common case (one VAT rate per invoice) but cannot represent invoices that mix rates. Tax Summary exists to handle that case, and the learning happens at the VAT-rate level rather than at the invoice level. See Tax Summary automation.

You can apply the updated settings to existing documents that are in the Ready state. Documents that are still being processed, already exported, in the trash, or flagged for review are not affected by the bulk re-apply. See Supplier defaults: auto-code documents by supplier for the apply-to-ready workflow.