Manage AP recoveries

When a historical exception is confirmed, the money may already have left. Recoveries gives your team an operational record from confirmation to closure: prepare the claim, assign an owner, track the supplier’s reply, and record the refund, credit note or offset when it arrives.

Invogi only counts money that actually came back: cash received, or a credit applied against a bill. A supplier’s promise or an unused credit note is shown as work in progress, never as recovered.

For a concise capability overview before following this operational guide, see AP Recovery Management.

Who can do this

Owners, admins and analysts. Viewers can read recovery cases. API keys can read them but can never record that money was recovered: that must be a person.

Find the candidates

In Review queue, choose Recovery candidates. It lists exceptions where money may already have been paid, with Payment-backed ones first: those backed by two payments, not only two invoices. Add payment history to your audit to get them.

Confirm each genuine one as usual (see Resolve review items).

Resolve a confirmed exception

Once an exception is confirmed, its page asks What happened to the money?

Choice	Use it when	What happens
Chase the supplier	The money is still owed to you.	A recovery case opens and you go to it.
Money already came back	All of it came back: a refund reached the bank, or a credit note or offset was already applied.	The case is recorded as recovered in one step, for the amount you enter. Nothing to track. If only part came back and the rest is still owed, choose Chase the supplier instead.
Stopped before payment	The duplicate was cancelled, voided or corrected before it was paid.	Recorded as a prevented loss. A payment that is only on hold doesn’t count.

If you resolve review items this way and the money comes back straight away, you never need the Recoveries page. It only fills up when a claim stays open.

Work a recovery case

1. Send the claim

   Open the case and use Claim to the supplier. Choose what to ask for:

   • Refund: cleanest when you rarely buy from this supplier.
   • Credit note: it only counts once you apply it against a bill.
   • Offset: deduct the overpayment from an open bill. Invogi lists recent bills from the supplier with no recorded payment; check they’re still unpaid before proposing it.

   Click Prepare claim. Invogi writes the letter with the evidence (both payments or invoices, amounts, dates and references). Review it, then use Open in email, Copy or Download to send it from your own email. Invogi never emails suppliers. Click I sent it to log it.

   A new case starts with the next action Send the claim to the supplier, due in 3 days. Logging contact moves it to Follow up if the supplier has not replied, due in a week, and a credit that arrives unused makes Apply the credit the next action. Invogi only moves its own suggestions: once you write your own next action, it stays as you set it.

2. Track the reply

   Set the owner, next action and due date, and the date the supplier promised to reply. Log calls, emails and replies under Log activity. The Recoveries list shows overdue cases first.

3. Record what came back

   Under What came back, record a refund received, a credit note or an agreed offset, with its reference and how you verified it. A refund counts as recovered immediately. For a credit note or offset, click Apply against a bill when you use it; only the applied amount counts.

   You don’t always have to type it in. When a refund shows up in payment history you import, or a Xero or QuickBooks sync finds an unused credit from the same supplier, the case shows Possible recovery to confirm and the owner gets a notification. Check it belongs to this claim, then click Confirm for this case (a refund is then recorded as received; a credit as a credit note to apply) or Not this case, which Invogi remembers. Invogi only suggests money from the supplier the case is about, in the case’s currency, and never more than the case is still waiting for.

4. Finish

   The case shows Recovered when the full amount is back. If the supplier won’t pay the rest, use Close the rest unrecovered with a reason: anything already recovered stays recovered.

Letters and supplier contacts

Supplier contacts on a case are the people your claims go to. They are shared by every case for that supplier; the primary one is chosen by default.

Claim to the supplier prepares the letter. Choose which letter: the first Claim letter, a Follow-up once you have written, or a Final reminder. Choose who it goes to, and what you ask for (a refund, a credit note or an offset). Invogi fills in the evidence, the amount still open and the date of your last logged contact. Open in email addresses it to the contact; click I sent it afterwards to log the contact. Invogi never writes to suppliers itself.

Admins can save your own wording under Settings → Recovery letters. Start from a built-in letter, and use placeholders such as {{amount}}, {{evidence}} or {{greeting_name}}, filled from the case each time. A template with a placeholder Invogi doesn’t recognise can’t be saved, so a typo never reaches a supplier.

Stop it happening again

When a case is recovered or closed, it asks what should stop this happening again. The suggestions depend on what caught the loss: for a duplicate, checking every new bill before it is paid and adding payment history to each audit; for a changed bank account, recording the supplier’s verified account; for an unused credit, keeping Xero or QuickBooks connected.

Each suggestion shows In place when Invogi can see it is already set up, or a link to where to set it up. Record it as done once it is in place (Invogi checks), or as not needed with a reason. Invogi never changes a setting for you. The quarterly value report lists the steps taken.

VAT

If the recovered amount includes VAT, the case shows VAT adjustment to review. If input VAT was reclaimed on the duplicate, your VAT return may need correcting. Record it as done once handled. Invogi doesn’t calculate returns or give tax advice.

Corrections and mistakes

• Wrong amount claimed? Use Adjust confirmed amount with a reason.
• A refund bounced or a credit was reversed? Click Reverse on that entry with a reason. The original entry stays visible, and the reversal shows as a negative movement on the day it happened.
• Closed too early? Use Reopen case.

Every change is recorded on the case timeline and in the audit log.

Unused supplier credits

If you connect Xero or QuickBooks Online, or run a free audit of either, Invogi also reads supplier credit notes that are still unused in your books. From QuickBooks it also reads vendor prepayments (money you paid in advance) not yet applied to a bill; they are handled the same way. A credit unused for 30 days or more, or a prepayment still unapplied after 60 days (prepayments often wait weeks for the goods), appears in Recovery candidates as Unused credit, valued at its current unused balance.

Confirm it and choose Track and use the credit. The case opens with the credit note already recorded, so the next step is to use it: apply it against an open bill from that supplier in your accounting system, or prepare a letter asking for a refund. When a later sync shows the credit used in Xero or QuickBooks, the case fills in that amount for you to confirm with the bill it was applied to. Invogi never records it as recovered by itself.

Duplicate cases

Sometimes two cases end up chasing the same money, for example one opened from a duplicate invoice and another from the matching duplicate payment. An admin can open one and use Merge into another case. Its evidence, refunds and credits move to the other case, and the loss is counted once, at the larger of the two amounts. The merged case keeps its history and links to the case that continues.

If a single review item, invoice or payment is on the wrong case, an admin can use Move a source to another case instead. Amounts don’t change, so adjust either case afterwards if what’s owed changed.

Reminders

The case owner gets a notification when a case is handed to them, when its next action is due tomorrow, today or overdue, when the supplier’s promised reply date passes, when a teammate records the supplier’s reply on their case, when a refund or credit that may answer the case is found, and when a credit note or offset has gone unused for two weeks. Reminders appear in the in-app inbox and, if you turned them on, as push notifications, which never show supplier names or amounts. Change them under Notifications. The Monday summary email also lists recoveries in progress, what came back that week, and any overdue cases.

Saved views

View	Shows
Open	Every case still being worked
Mine	Open cases you own
Overdue	Next action past its due date
Awaiting first contact	No claim sent yet
Waiting on supplier	Claim sent or supplier agreed
Supplier promise overdue	The supplier’s promised reply date has passed
Credits not applied	A credit note or offset is recorded but unused
Partly recovered	Some money back, some still open or closed
Recovered	Fully recovered
Closed	Closed with some or all of the claim unrecovered

Where the numbers appear

The Overview shows Verified recovery for the selected period and Recovery in progress as of today. The two are never added together.

AP managers can open Recoveries → Team performance for 30, 90 or 365 days. It shows the recovery rate over cases finished in that window, median days to the first money back and to full recovery, and today’s open value by age. It also separates overdue and unassigned work, supplier-agreed value still outstanding, and credit received but not yet applied. The owner table uses the same definitions and exchange-rate treatment as the value report.