Each folder in Datamolino can be connected to one Xero organisation. Folders in Datamolino represent companies. Usually, users create one folder for one company and store all documents from different suppliers inside.

For larger companies, you can create multiple folders and connect them to the same Xero. Each folder can represent a different location, branch or project and this setup enables you to set different automation rules for each to save more time on invoice coding.  

Xero allows you to manage multiple companies as Xero organisations, the folder in Datamolino is equivalent to that.

Folders can be easily shared amongst users. Just click 'invite user', type in an email address and the folder will be shared with the user. 

If you invite an existing Datamolino user, he will get an email notification and the folder will appear in his 'My Folders' dashboard straight away. 

When you invite a new user, he will get an invitation to create a Datamolino account first and will have access to this folder only after he creates his account.

Each folder has a unique email address that you can use to forward invoices received in your mailbox. The format of the email address is 'yourfoldername@dmln.com'.

You can also set your scanner to scan documents directly to your folder using the folder email address. This feature comes in handy if you have a scanner with a feeder. Datamolino can split multipage scans into individual transactions. Scan a batch of invoices into one file, email it from the scanner to Datamolino and the system will handle the rest.

Inside the folder, you will find all the invoices and receipts in one place, ready to be sent to your Xero. To import invoices, you can use our web application and select files from your hard drive or use the folder email. To upload through our web app, just click the 'Import' button and follow the instructions. 

Once your documents have been uploaded, you will be redirected to the folder import history where you can access details of all uploads. This dashboard provides data on how your files were sent (email, web or phone app), who sent them, as well as the original filenames and upload times. This dashboard is also helpful when you need to find documents later.

To get to the Import history, click here:

Work inside the folder

It is easy to work with the folder. Each transaction manually exported to Xero has a little green Xero badge. The automatically exported transaction has a light blue Xero badge. Everything that is still waiting for export has the status 'ready'.

Datamolino also detects duplicates on the file level and data level. A 'file duplicate' is not processed automatically and stops in the Import history for your review. This helps you when you upload the same file twice by accident. A 'data duplicate' is a file that is visually the same but has been created in a different time or format. In this case, Datamolino processes the file and by comparing the 'supplier name' and 'invoice number' it flags it as a duplicate when these values match.

Click the 'Ready to export' tab on top of the invoice list to filter out only the invoices and receipts that are freshly processed and ready for you to review and export to Xero.

Use the filter inside the folder with its criteria to see only the selected documents in your folder.

The tabs inside the folder also help you navigate throughout the folder:

If you use multiple folders, the quickest way to locate the document is by using the 'Search' inside the main My Folders dashboard.

Datamolino is an automated service; we give you the results within a couple of minutes once Datamolino has learned how to read the invoices of your suppliers. The learning process (fingerprinting) is handled by our operators and the maximum fingerprinting time you should experience is 24 hours (except for weekends). Usually, the documents are ready for you much sooner depending on our processing capacity.

Once Datamolino learned to read the supplier invoice, the next time you upload an invoice from the same supplier or with the same layout,  it is processed automatically within a couple of minutes (depending on the server load).

 
Quality of original documents is important

To get you the best data capture results, the quality of your original documents is very important. Digital PDFs and 300 DPI invoice scans give the best results. As a rule of thumb, if the scan has a low print quality or has handwriting that interferes with the data, our robot will have a hard time picking out the correct data for you.

However, even on invoices that cannot be automated, Datamolino gives you the basic data, so you can export it to your Xero, we just process them manually for you. This means that you will need to wait for the manual process to finish. For the best user experience, upload good quality scans or digital PDFs.

Line item data extraction works only on invoices that can be automated, i.e. have good image quality.

When you create a folder, you are prompted to connect the folder to your Xero organisation. If you have not done so, please connect the folder to your Xero so you can proceed with the data export.

If you edit some settings inside your Xero later, e.g. chart of accounts or tax codes, click 'Refresh Xero Connection' to reflect the changes inside Datamolino. This option will show up after you connect your folder in the same menu as on the above screenshot.

When you export a document for the first time into Xero, you need to pair the supplier names on the invoices with your contacts in Xero. Datamolino remembers the pairing for future use.

You can review the invoices one by one and export them as you go. This is preferable if you receive invoices from a new supplier or if you suspect there could be OCR-based errors due to invoice quality.

Just click on the first invoice in the invoice list and follow these steps:

5. To send data to Xero, click 'Export' button.

Datamolino will remember the supplier name, ledger accounts, tax codes, tracking categories and suggest it to you the next time you import invoices from the same supplier. This means that the “hard work” of choosing the coding happens only for the first time in the folder. On the next export you only need to review the settings and adjust only when necessary.

Exporting multiple invoices at once can be a major time saver. This is a good choice if you do not need to adjust the figures or invoice descriptions. Feel free to use it in one of the below scenarios:

You can export all ready-to-export invoices by clicking 'Review & Export' inside the folder. If you want to export only selected invoices, tick the box next to the invoices you want to export and click 'Export to Xero'.

You will be redirected to the Bulk Export screen where you can easily review and adjust coding in bulk if needed. To learn more about this feature, check this article.

By default, Datamolino exports all your data to the 'Xero Draft Bills' together with the original invoice image. You can change this in the 'Folder Settings'.

You can send the data also into transactions of your bank account. You can choose this option in Supplier Automation.

Inside the folder settings screen, you can change all important folder behaviour including:

Batch scanning - this saves a massive amount of time

Datamolino can split multipage scans into individual transactions. Scanning invoices one by one takes a lot of time. With Datamolino, you can scan the purchase invoices in batches. All you need is a scanner with a feeder. Set your scanner to email the scan directly to your folder to save even more time. The scans can contain multipage invoices, and we can still split the scan correctly.

Sales invoices - for the occasional old-school client

Some companies do not use Xero to raise their invoices. For the bookkeeper this means creating many transactions in Xero manually. If you have PDFs or scans of the sales invoices, just switch to the 'Sales Invoices' section of your Datamolino folder.

This section of the folder allows you to process sales invoices and sends the data to Xero Invoice Drafts.

//Technical note: you can send sales invoices to the sales folder by email if you include @sales in the subject line. Or you can create a new folder for only sales invoices and change the default email routing (via Folder settings) so that all invoices are automatically forwarded to the sales subfolder.

Tax summary - very useful for invoices containing multiple tax rates

Some invoices contain multiple tax rates. If the 'tax summary' is printed on the invoice, Datamolino tries to capture it. This can give you one line of data for each tax rate. You can try this by clicking 'Tax Summary' option in the document detail and see if we have captured it. You can also easily add another line of data if needed.

Special usage: if you need to break down an invoice into multiple lines, you can click 'add tax line' to create a new line on the invoice with a different ledger code (but without the possibility of changing the description per each line). 

Line item extraction - gives you a boost for that special client Datamolino can capture every line of invoice data.

Available on the 'Detailed user plan', this feature gives you the ability to copy the invoice line by line into Xero and code each line item with a different ledger account and tracking category. It also allows you to split the line items into different tax rates. In addition, each line item contains a different description as per the invoice. This is great for invoices where you receive different products or services.

Export data as bank transactions

This allows you to bypass the Accounts Payables and instead immediately create a spend money transaction in Bank Accounts.

This workaround works great for receipts that have been already paid by cash or credit card. This way you can post them directly as a spend money transaction and choose the correct ‘Bank Account’.

In the Supplier Automation dashboard you can set which supplier invoices should be sent to the Bank Transactions endpoint in Xero. Or you can set it for all suppliers via Mass edit.

Change your workflow to speed things up - dedicate a junior to pre-fill and clean up your Datamolino

Dedicate a team member that is responsible for uploading documents to Datamolino. Your colleagues that will do the invoice coding can pick up the invoices directly in Datamolino. This saves additional time. Previously, everybody had to pick up his stack of documents, sort them and enter the data into the system. After data entry the paper documents needed to be filed into a folder and put into archive. If one person is responsible for digitising documents, the rest of the team does not need to waste time moving paper around the office.

Some data is FYI only - these are the fields that we actually export

Datamolino finds various data points on each invoice, not all data is used for export into Xero.

With basic invoice data we export the TOTAL as tax inclusive. That is why it is important to choose the correct 'tax code' before the export. Xero applies the tax rate from the 'tax code' setting and calculates taxes in the background. (The VAT amount that we find is for your information only, Xero recalculates VAT from the TOTAL upon import)

With line items, we export the TOTAL as tax inclusive. If the line item on the invoice has only NET values, we find and export only NET values as tax exclusive. Xero applies the tax rate from the "tax code" setting and calculates taxes in the background.

Need Excel or CSV export - this can be done as well, easy

You can always export data into Excel or CSV by clicking the 'down arrow' on the export button and choosing 'Export to file'.

Original images - those are one click away, easily export your scans and PDFs

With every export from Datamolino to Xero, the original file is also exported and attached as a file in your Xero under the specific transaction.

What type of files can you import - PDF, TIFF, JPG, PNG, and ZIP.

You can also send emails with html receipts. 

Update August 2018: Datamolino supports also DOC, DOCX, XLS, XLSX formats.