Duplicate alerts

A warning when the same invoice appears to have come in twice. Off by default.

Turn it on

Settings → Inbox alert (/settings?panel=inboxAlert). Both admins and reviewers can change this.

Two settings: whether the alert is on, and how far back a match counts.

What you see

Flagged documents get an outline Duplicate badge in the Inbox and the Documents table, with the tooltip "Same invoice no. + party as an earlier document".

It's a warning only. It blocks nothing. Export and push proceed normally on a flagged document. There's nothing to override or dismiss — you look, you judge, you carry on.

That's deliberate. Genuine duplicates happen (someone forwards the same invoice twice), but so do legitimate repeats, and blocking the second one automatically would be wrong more often than right.

How the match works

Two documents are a match when they share both the invoice number and the counterparty — the supplier on a purchase document, the customer on a sales one. Only the later one is flagged.

Consequences worth knowing:

• A document with no invoice number is never flagged. Photos where the number didn't extract slip through — the check can't work without it.
• Same invoice number, different supplier: not flagged. Suppliers number their invoices independently, so overlaps are normal.
• Same supplier, same number, different amounts: still flagged. Worth checking — it may be a revised invoice rather than a duplicate.

The scope setting

Only processed documents (the default) — a document is flagged only if the earlier match already reached your accounting system. This is the setting that answers the question that actually matters: have I already booked this?

All documents — flags matches against everything, including documents still awaiting review. Catches double-sends earlier, at the cost of more flags.

Start with the default. Switch to All documents if you find the same invoices being forwarded twice before anyone reviews them.

When you see the badge

1. Open both documents and compare them against their originals.
2. A genuine duplicate: don't export it. Use Report invalid so it doesn't count against your allowance — see Report an invalid document.
3. A revised invoice, or a legitimate repeat: carry on. Nothing to dismiss.

If you're seeing too many flags

Either invoice numbers aren't extracting reliably (check a few originals), or your suppliers genuinely reuse numbers. In the second case, switch the scope to Only processed documents if you haven't, or turn the alert off — a warning you've learned to ignore is worse than no warning.