Manage Workstations

Workstations are how neoo handles sign-off. When AR or AP transactions need a second pair of eyes before they post, you route them to a workstation, and the users assigned to that workstation see them on their Approvals page. Workstations also enforce approval limits — capping how much any one user can post — and they decide where each incoming document lands to begin with.

Navigate to System → Manage Stations to set them up.

Administering workstations requires the stations.manage permission. The end-user view of workstations is at Approvals.

Understanding workstations#

What a workstation is#

Each workstation is:

• a list of users who can review transactions there,
• approval rules — one for AP (vendor) and one for AR (customer) — that control how much each side’s reviewers can approve, and
• optionally a set of default-for roles that make it the landing queue for incoming documents.

When the Document Inbox creates a transaction, or when someone transfers a transaction from the form, the transaction lands on a workstation. Everyone assigned to that station sees it under My Workstations until someone approves it (posting it to the ledger).

The workstation you start with#

Every new dataset starts with a single workstation, named Default. It is the default for Everything, so every incoming document — vendor, customer, or other — lands there until you create more workstations and split the routing.

It comes with no users assigned and no approval rules. That has two consequences worth knowing on day one:

• Until you add at least one user, nobody can act on transactions routed there — and no transaction can be approved. Assigning users is the first thing to do on a new dataset.
• With no approval rule on either side, both AP and AR are unrestricted: anyone with access to the workstation can approve any amount. Add rules once you know who should sign off on what — see Approval Rules.

How documents get routed#

Every document that arrives — emailed in or uploaded — is sent to exactly one workstation to be reviewed. This section explains how neoo decides which one.

Default-for roles#

A workstation becomes a landing queue by holding one or more default-for roles. There are four:

A type-specific role always wins over Everything: if one station is default for AP and another for Everything, vendor documents go to the AP station and everything else falls back to the Everything station. Each role can be held by only one active station at a time, so there is never any ambiguity about where a given kind of document lands.

How the inbox decides: vendor, customer, or other#

When a document is emailed to your dataset’s general inbox address (the plain address with no custom name — see Custom inbox email addresses below), neoo reads it and classifies it automatically as one of three kinds:

• Vendor (AP) — a bill or receipt issued to your company by a supplier.
• Customer (AR) — an invoice your company issued to a customer.
• Other — anything that isn’t a bill or an invoice at all (order confirmations, delivery notes, statements, general correspondence, and plain emails with no attachment).

To tell a bill you received apart from an invoice you sent, the classifier compares the document against your own company details: the company name, address, and VAT/UID number from your Company Defaults, and the IBANs and QR-IBANs of your company bank accounts. A document that shows your VAT number as the issuer, or your IBAN as the account to pay into, is your own outgoing invoice (AR); one addressed to you with a supplier’s payment details is a bill (AP).

Keep your company details accurate for reliable routing. Because classification leans on this information, an incomplete company profile leads to more misfiled documents. Make sure your Company Defaults (company name, address, and VAT/UID number) are filled in and that every company bank account carries its correct IBAN or QR-IBAN. The more of this neoo can match against, the more accurately vendor, customer, and other documents are told apart.

Once classified, the document follows the default-for role for its kind: a vendor document to the AP station, a customer document to the AR station, an other document to the Other station — each falling back to the Everything station when no type-specific station exists.

Ways to override the automatic routing#

Two settings take priority over the automatic classification:

• Custom inbox addresses — an address restricted to a single document type pins that kind directly, skipping the guesswork; an address that accepts several types still classifies exactly as the general address does, and the type selection only decides whether the address’s pinned workstation applies to the resulting kind. Either way the documents can be sent straight to a specific station. See Custom inbox email addresses.
• Per-user default station — you can send everything a particular colleague uploads or emails in to one dedicated station, regardless of kind. See User defaults and posting.

Receipts for a bank transaction don’t pass through workstations at all. A bank line is handed to someone as an expense (Assign expense on Bank Transactions), the receipt is attached there, and it is read and approved on the Expenses page — always as a vendor document, never as a customer or other document.

Auto-completing “other” documents#

Documents classified as Other aren’t bills or invoices, so there is nothing to post — by default they sit on their station as a record until someone marks them complete. On a busy inbox that means a steady trickle of delivery notes, order confirmations and plain notification emails to click through.

The Other Documents card on the Manage Stations page lets you close them automatically instead. This is a single setting for the whole dataset — it is not configured per station, and it applies wherever the document lands:

Emails only is the usual choice: it stops routine notifications and acknowledgements from piling up, while still putting a human eye on anything that arrived as a real document.

Nothing is hidden and nothing is lost. An auto-completed document is still read, filed and archived exactly like any other — it simply skips the waiting list. You can find it again at any time in the Document Inbox by setting Document kind to Other, and widening Period if it has been a while. Because the inbox opens on the last two weeks, remember to widen the period when looking for something older.

The stations list#

The main page shows every workstation in a table:

Creating or editing a station#

Click Add Station at the top, or Edit on a row. The dialog has these fields:

Default for — where documents land#

Default for is a multi-select that makes the station the default landing queue for one or more of the default-for roles explained above — Everything, AP, AR, or Other.

A station can hold several roles at once (say, AP and Other) — but Everything cannot be combined with the specific roles: picking it clears the others, and picking a specific role clears Everything.

Each role can only be held by one active station, so there is never any ambiguity about where a document lands. Assigning a role that another station already holds moves it — the previous holder simply loses that role when you save, without a warning. If a station you expect to be the AP default suddenly shows no chips, check whether the role was claimed elsewhere.

Account Restrictions#

The Account Restrictions section limits which accounts are selectable on a transaction while it sits on this station — useful for keeping a data-entry or intake station to a small, safe set of accounts:

• AP Expense Accounts and AP Tax Accounts — the accounts offered on vendor transactions.
• AR Income Accounts and AR Tax Accounts — the accounts offered on customer transactions.

Leave a list empty to allow all accounts of that kind. The tax lists are combined with the customer’s or vendor’s own tax accounts, so a contact’s specific tax setup keeps working.

Approval Rules#

Below the main fields is the Approval Rules section. You set rules separately for each side: one rule for AP (Vendor) transactions and one for AR (Customer) transactions.

A side with no rule is unrestricted. If you don’t add a rule for a side, anyone with access to the workstation can approve that side’s transactions, with no amount cap. So an AP-only rule leaves AR open to all reviewers — add an AR rule when you want AR sign-off to be limited too. The in-app banner says: “Set separate approval rules for AP (vendor) and AR (customer). A side with no rule can be approved by anyone with access to this workstation.”

Rule types#

Each side’s rule can be one of:

If you pick Amount Based, fill in the Maximum Amount field with the cap (e.g. 5000).

Important — you must click “Add Rule”#

This is the single most common reason “I can’t approve a transaction” happens. Selecting a rule type from the dropdown is not enough. You must click the Add Rule button under that side afterwards. Only then does the rule attach to the station.

Saving needs at least one rule (AP or AR) attached. If clicking Save Station returns “Add an approval rule for AP or AR to save the station”, this is why.

Once added, each rule shows as a card for its side (Approve All, Amount ≤ 5000, or No Approval) with a small delete button if you want to remove it.

Saving#

Click Save Station to confirm. The station is available immediately for routing.

Assigning users#

From the station’s row, click Users. The dialog has two columns:

• Current Users — everyone already on this station. Click the minus icon next to a user to remove them.
• Add Users — everyone else in your dataset, with a search box above the list. Click a user to add them to the station.

Adds and removes take effect immediately — there’s nothing to save.

You can also assign workstations while inviting someone to the dataset — the person is added to the chosen stations automatically when they accept the invite, so they see their approvals from their very first sign-in.

A workstation with zero users won’t be reachable on the Approvals page for anyone, and transactions routed to it will sit until you add at least one user. After deploying a new station, double-check the user list before routing transactions there.

User defaults and posting#

The User Defaults & Posting card lists every user in the dataset and lets you set, per person, where their documents land by default, whether they’re allowed to post, and which form buttons they see. Changes save as soon as you make them — there’s nothing to click afterwards.

Default routing station#

Most documents follow the default-for routing above (a vendor document to the station holding the AP role, and so on). The per-user default overrides that for a specific person: anything they upload, or email in from their account address, goes straight to the station you pick. This is useful when a colleague’s documents should always start in a dedicated queue.

A per-user default takes priority over the general default stations, but not over a station pinned on a custom inbox address — an address pinned to a workstation always wins.

The Scope decides which of the user’s documents the default station catches. With AP (Vendor) only, only documents classified as vendor documents go to that station; the rest follow the normal routing. Since documents emailed to the general inbox are classified automatically (see How documents get routed), the scope filters on the result of that classification.

Post AP / Post AR permissions#

The Post AP and Post AR toggles control whether a user may post that side of the books. Both are on by default.

• Post AP off — the user can’t post vendor (AP) transactions or invoices. On those forms the Post, Post as New, New Number, and Reversal buttons are hidden for them, and the server refuses posting even if attempted another way.
• Post AR off — the same for customer (AR) transactions and invoices.

Delete stays available. Turning a toggle off does not hide the Delete button or block deletion — a user who can open a transaction can still delete it (subject to closed-period and reversal rules). Turning a toggle off also doesn’t stop the user from approving a transaction that’s waiting on their workstation, or from transferring one to another station. This lets you set up reviewers who can sign off on and clean up work without being able to create or reverse postings themselves.

Hide Buttons#

The Hide Buttons column removes individual buttons from the transaction forms for that user: New Number, Post as New, and Reversal can each be hidden. It matters while the user can still post — with both Post AP and Post AR off those buttons are already gone and the setting is disabled. Use it to declutter the forms for users who can post but should stick to the plain Post action, without taking their posting rights away.

Custom inbox email addresses#

neoo can turn incoming email into bookkeeping work automatically: attach a document to an email, send it to your dataset’s inbox address, and it’s picked up, read, and routed to a workstation for you. Mail sent to the general inbox address is classified automatically as vendor, customer, or other (see How documents get routed). The Inbox Email Addresses card lets you create custom addresses that decide up front which kinds of document arrive there and which workstation they should start in.

Each address looks like yourdataset+name@yourdomain. The part before the + is your dataset; the part after it is the custom name you choose. The full address for each entry is shown in the list, with a button to copy it.

Document types is a multiple choice, and it changes how the document is read:

• One type selected — the kind is pinned directly and no automatic classification happens at all. An address set to Vendor treats everything sent there as a bill; an address set to Other files everything as a non-invoice document without reading it as an invoice.
• Several types selected — the document is classified automatically, exactly as it would be at the general inbox address; the selection only decides whether the address’s pinned workstation applies to the kind the document turns out to be. Select all three and the address takes everything, which is the way to send any kind of document to one particular workstation.

So you might give your suppliers yourdataset+invoices@… (Vendor, routed to your AP review station), your billing system yourdataset+statements@… (Customer), and your team yourdataset+post@… with all three types selected and a workstation pinned, so anything at all that’s forwarded there lands in that queue. A document sent to a name you haven’t set up simply arrives at the general inbox and is classified automatically, exactly as if you’d used the plain dataset address.

Nothing is ever turned away. If a document turns out to be a kind the address doesn’t accept — a customer invoice sent to a Vendor-only address, say — it is still taken in and read as what it really is. Only the address’s pinned workstation is skipped: the document follows the normal default-for routing instead, and its workstation history records why. Mail is never bounced or dropped because of the type selection.

Custom inbox addresses need your email ingestion domain to be configured first. Until then the Add Address button stays disabled. This is an installation setting — contact Support if it isn’t available.

Deactivating and deleting#

Retiring a workstation happens in one of two ways, and both have the same effect:

• Delete on the station’s row. It first requires the station to be empty of users — if anyone is still assigned, you get “Cannot delete station with assigned users. Remove all users first.” Clear the user list, then delete.
• Turning the Active toggle off in the station dialog and saving.

Either way the workstation stops appearing in routing dropdowns and on the Approvals page, and transactions previously routed through it keep their history — you can still see which stations a document passed through.

The stations list only shows active workstations. A deleted or deactivated station disappears from this page for good, so there is no way to switch it back on afterwards. Before retiring a station, move any work sitting on it to another workstation and check whether it holds a Default for role — if it does, that role is retired with it and documents of that kind fall back to the Everything station. If no station is left to catch them, they arrive on no workstation at all and are only visible to administrators, in an Unassigned group on the Approvals page.

Central review by Z83#

For most mandates, neoo adds one more step after your approval: a central review by the Z83 team before the document is booked and paid. Nothing changes in how you work — you upload, the AI processes, you approve — but on a mandate with this review switched on, an approved AP transaction is not booked straight away.

What you will notice:

• After you approve, the document leaves your workstation and moves to the central Z83 Validation station. It no longer counts as pending on your Approvals page, and it does not appear in reports or in Bank Payments until Z83 has booked it.
• Opening the document (for example from the Document Inbox) shows a banner: This document has been approved and is awaiting Z83 review. While it waits it is read-only — it cannot be approved, posted, moved or deleted from your side.
• Booked by Z83 — most documents are booked automatically by Z83’s booking rules moments after your approval; the rest are checked by a person. Either way the document then behaves like any other approved transaction.
• Sent back — if something needs to change, Z83 returns the document to one of your workstations with a message. The message is shown at the top of the transaction and in its transfer history, and the document is back in your Approvals list. Fix what was asked and approve it again.

Whether a mandate uses the Z83 review, and for which side (AP, AR or both), is set by Z83 — it is not something you switch on or off yourself. If you are unsure whether it applies to you, ask your Z83 contact.

Activity and history#

neoo keeps a record of every change made in the workstation area, so you can always see who set something up and when.

• Activity (top of the page) opens a timeline of every configuration change across all stations — stations created, renamed, made active or inactive, deleted, approval rules edited, and user defaults or posting permissions changed. Each entry shows who made the change, when, and what changed.
• History (on each station) opens a timeline for that one station. It combines the station’s own configuration changes with every transaction that moved in to or out of it, so you can trace how work has flowed through the station. The transfer entries are drawn from the transaction movement record, so they reflect exactly where each document went.

Putting rules and routing together#

To make a workstation actually do its job, three things have to be in place:

1. The station is active with at least one user assigned.
2. Transactions are reaching it — through Document Inbox routing (based on the station’s Default for roles), by picking a station under Move to… and clicking Move in the actions panel of a pending transaction, or with the Transfer to Station action on My Workstations.
3. An approval rule is added for each side you want to gate (AP and/or AR), so users can post within their limit. A side with no rule stays open to anyone with station access.

Once that’s in place, your team members will see incoming transactions under Approvals and can open, review, and approve them in a few clicks.