The Purchase Invoices and Credit Memos category

  • 02/02/2026
  • 7 minutes to read

The Purchase Invoices and Credit Memos category – PURCHASE – in Continia Document Capture is designed to process incoming purchase documents, such as vendor invoices and credit memos. Therefore, it serves as the backbone of the accounts payable flow – and it’s the most used category in the solution.

By combining document recognition, validation, and business logic, the PURCHASE category ensures that data in purchase documents is captured accurately and consistently before these documents are posted in Business Central. Information such as vendor details, document references, amounts, VAT, and dimensions is extracted and validated based on predefined rules and master data.

The PURCHASE category supports both summary-level and line-level documents, and can handle both PDFs and eDocuments. It’s suitable for a wide range of purchase scenarios, from simple invoices to documents that require detailed line information and control.

To create a purchase invoice

  1. Search (Search) for and select Document Categories.

  2. Click the PURCHASE code to open the document journal for purchase invoices and credit memos.

  3. In the list of documents, select the document you want to use as the basis for the purchase invoice.

  4. Check if all required fields have been captured correctly, and if any warnings or error messages are displayed in the Comments section. If something is wrong or missing, correct this manually. For example, to capture any unidentified field captions or values manually, see Capturing header fields in a document.

  5. Go to [I]nvoice / [C]redit Memo / [P]repayment, and ensure that the letter I is assigned to it. If not, enter the desired value manually and then press Enter.

  6. In the action bar, click Template > Template Card to open the template card.

  7. On the Purchase Documents FastTab, go to Invoice Reg. Step 1 and make sure that either Create Invoice or Match Order & Create Invoice is selected.

    Note

    If Match Order & Create Invoice is selected, Document Capture uses the Our Order No. or Vendor Order No. data to automatically determine whether to create an invoice or update an existing one. For more information, see Order and receipt matching.

  8. In the action bar, click Home > Register to register the purchase invoice.

The purchase invoice is created as a business unit in Business Central, ready for further processing.

To create a credit memo

  1. Search (Search) for and select Document Categories.

  2. Click the PURCHASE code to open the document journal for purchase invoices and credit memos.

  3. In the list of documents, select the document you want to use as the basis for the credit memo.

  4. Check if all required fields have been captured correctly, and if any warnings or error messages are displayed in the Comments section. If something is wrong or missing, correct this manually. For example, to capture any unidentified field captions or values manually, see Capturing header fields in a document.

  5. Go to [I]nvoice / [C]redit Memo / [P]repayment, and ensure that the letter C is assigned to it. If not, enter the desired value manually and then press Enter.

  6. In the action bar, click Template > Template Card to open the template card.

  7. On the Purchase Documents FastTab, go to Credit Memo Reg. Step 1 and make sure that either Create Credit Memo or Match Return Order & Create Credit Memo is selected.

    Note

    If Match Return Order & Create Credit Memo is selected, Document Capture uses the Our Order No. or Vendor Order No. data to automatically determine whether to create an invoice or update an existing one.

  8. In the action bar, click Home > Register to register the credit memo.

The credit memo is created as a business unit in Business Central, ready for further processing.

To update a matched purchase order

Note

The procedure described below concerns updates to a purchase order during the matching process with a purchase invoice. For information on how to update order data unrelated to invoices, see To update a purchase order.

  1. Search (Search) for and select Document Categories.
  2. Click the PURCHASE code to open the document journal for purchase invoices and credit memos.
  3. In the list of documents, select the document you want to use as the basis for the order.
  4. Check if all required fields have been captured correctly, and if any warnings or error messages are displayed in the Comments section. If something is wrong or missing, correct this manually. For example, to capture any unidentified field captions or values manually, see Capturing header fields in a document.
  5. Go to [I]nvoice / [C]redit Memo / [P]repayment, and ensure that the letter I is assigned to it. If not, enter the desired value manually and then press Enter.
  6. In the action bar, click Template > Template Card to open the template card.
  7. On the Purchase Documents FastTab, go to Invoice Reg. Step 1 and make sure that Match & Update Order is selected.
  8. In the action bar, click Home > Register to register the purchase invoice.

The existing purchase order that matches the selected document is updated with the data of the selected document.