Many businesses choose to create multiple supplier cards for the same supplier. This is often done to separate expenses by location, service type, payment terms, or internal reporting needs, and in some cases because the accounting system does not provide other ways to distinguish these differences.


When invoices are received, they often show the same supplier name across all variants. In this situation, Ocerra matches the invoice to the most recently used supplier card with that name, which can result in the wrong supplier being selected. This behaviour is by design and does not indicate a data extraction issue.


To address this, Ocerra introduces Unique Supplier ID (Beta). A Unique Supplier ID is any unique value shown in the invoice header - such as an account number, location, payment terms, reference number, or address - that helps Ocerra identify the correct supplier card when several exist for the same supplier.


Common scenarios this applies to

This feature is designed to cover patterns such as:

  • Same supplier, different locations
    (e.g. Repco NSW vs Repco VIC, Bidfood Cairns vs Bidfood Gold Coast)

  • Same supplier, different invoice types
    (e.g. ABC Rental vs ABC Fuel)

  • Same supplier, different account or reference numbers
    (e.g. utilities with multiple site or customer numbers)

  • Same supplier, different payment setups
    (e.g. separate supplier cards with different payment terms)

In all cases, the supplier name alone is not sufficient to select the correct supplier card in the system.

 

Important prerequisite: set your business tax number

Before using Unique Supplier ID feature, ensure your business tax number is set correctly.

  1. Go to Settings → General

  2. Enter your tax number

    • Australia: ABN

    • New Zealand: IRD number

  3. Save changes

This helps Ocerra correctly distinguish supplier tax numbers from your own business tax number, which is important for accurate supplier identification.


? For more detail, see: [link to existing tax number support article]


How Unique Supplier ID work (Beta)

Each supplier card in Ocerra now includes a Unique ID field.

This field allows you to specify one value that appears in the header of the invoice and uniquely identifies that supplier card.

When an invoice is processed, Ocerra looks for this value in the invoice header and uses it to select the correct supplier card.


How to set it up

  1. Go to Settings → Vendors

  2. Open a supplier record

  3. Locate the Unique ID field

  4. Enter a value that:

    • appears in the header of the invoice (not the line description), and

    • uniquely identifies this supplier card

  5. Save changes


What can be used as a Unique ID

You can use any stable value that appears in the invoice header, for example:

  • Account or customer number

  • Location or site name

  • Reference number

  • Part of the supplier name that differentiates it

  • Payment terms (if this is how supplier cards are intentionally differentiated)

Example:

  • Mercury 12345 → Unique ID: 12345

  • Bidfood Cairns vs Bidfood Goldcoast → Unique ID is in invoice number such as .CAI or .GOL

  • Rental supplier card → Unique ID: 30 Days Net (if payment terms are the differentiator)

If your setup changes (for example, payment terms change), you can update the Unique ID at any time.



Example setup 1:



Example setup 2: 


Beta limitations and support

  • It may not cover 100% of edge cases yet

  • Matching depends on the identifier being:

    • present on the invoice header

    • extracted correctly

  • If a match cannot be confidently made, manual review may still be required


Note: Address details on invoices are not always extracted consistently and may not be reliable as a Unique Supplier ID at this stage. If address-based matching does not work as expected, we recommend using another header-level identifier such as an account number, reference number, payment terms, or document number instead.


Once this feature is fully tested and validated across more scenarios, it will move out of Beta.