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R
RjamilarinUK
May 27, 2025
Question

Hi, Who among you here have tried the invoice processing automation yet failing in terms of the VAT portion in QBO? What have you done to correct it?

  • May 27, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 13 views

We tried to process invoices from supplier to automatically record in QuickBooks to lessen the need of manual posting

2 replies

J
JamaicaAQuickBooks Team
QuickBooks Team
May 27, 2025

You'll want to double-check the file type and visibility of the invoices, Rjamilarin. Let me share the specifics below.

 

When processing automation invoices from suppliers, are you referring to the receipt forwarding, snap receipt, or manually uploading bills/receipts? Please know that your clarification can help me provide a more accurate resolution for your situation.

 

QuickBooks Online reads the uploaded bills, extracts information, and automatically matches it to a transaction. For your first question, the system may fail to read the VAT portion if the uploaded document is not in a compatible format or does not display the amount clearly.

 

To correct this issue, ensure that the photo's file type is PDF, JPEG, JPG, GIF, and PNG. If you have HEIC images from a newer iPhone or iPad, you can convert HEIC images to a compatible format. Although this lessens your manual posting, I still recommend reviewing them for accurate records and entering the amount not recognised in the meantime.

 

Here are some references for more detailed information about these matters:

 

 

Once done, refer to this article to add or match the attachments to the existing entries in the program: Categorise online bank transactions in QuickBooks.

 

You're always welcome to reach out to me again for further questions about bills. Do you have inquiries about supplier management? I'd be delighted to answer them for you.

R
RjamilarinUKAuthor
June 9, 2025

Hi Jamaica,

 

We have tried uploading files or sending it via email to QBOdocs. 

What we are trying now is the automation that will automatically process an invoice.

The problem is, when an invoice does have VAT, it will not show when we open the invoice(will always be set to "NO VAT") but the VAT can be seen if the invoice is viewed from the supplier screen.

Is there any update on this one? My colleague said that this issue was from long ago already.

 

Hope you have good news regarding this.

 

Regards,

J
JeveeAdvin_laQuickBooks Team
QuickBooks Team
June 9, 2025

To ensure that the invoice consistently shows as having VAT, we can adjust the settings in your customer's account, RjamilarinUK.

 

To modify the tax settings for a customer, follow these steps:

 

  1. Navigate to the Sales tab and select Customers.
  2. Choose the customer you wish to modify.
  3. In the upper right corner, click the Edit button.
  4. Scroll down to find the box labelled Assign default tax code.
  5. Your default tax code will be displayed with tax preference.
  6. Then hit Save.



 

Once done, go to your customer's invoice to adjust some settings.

 

Here's how:

 

  1. Navigate to the Sales tab and select Customers.
  2. Under the Action column in the customer invoice, click View/Edit.
  3. In the Amounts are field, click the dropdown menu and select Inclusive of Tax.
  4. Under the VAT column, choose your preferred VAT option.

 

Check out this resource to learn how to assign VAT categories in QuickBooks Online for automatic VAT calculation on your products and services: Add VAT categories to products and services in QuickBooks.

 

For future reference on how to receive and record invoice payments in QBO, check out this resource: Record invoice payments in QuickBooks.

We are here to provide prompt assistance and answer any additional questions you may have.

J
James EL OUFIR
June 17, 2026

I would separate two checks here.

First, check whether the automation is extracting the VAT amount correctly from the supplier invoice before it ever reaches QuickBooks. If the extracted fields already show the wrong VAT code or missing VAT amount, the issue is upstream in the capture/OCR step.

Second, check how the import maps into QBO: supplier, bill date, net amount, VAT code, VAT amount, gross amount, and whether the line is being treated as a bill line or a payment/banking transaction. A lot of "No VAT" cases happen because the data is being pushed into the wrong QBO field or because the VAT code is not mapped per line.

For UK/EU supplier invoices, I would not rely only on OCR accuracy. I would add a pre-import review that checks invoice number, supplier VAT ID, invoice date, net, VAT, gross, and tax code before posting into QBO. That way you catch the VAT problem before it becomes a bookkeeping cleanup issue.

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