What this does
On Ariba, each of your customers is a buyer. The Customer column of the Ariba invoice list shows the buyer name. Kolleno must know which Kolleno customer each buyer is. If a buyer has no link, Kolleno cannot save the invoice statuses of that buyer.
Kolleno finds the buyers itself and links most of them to your customers automatically. You link the other buyers by hand.
Example: on Ariba the buyer is ACME Corp EMEA. In Kolleno the customer is Acme Corporation Ltd. Kolleno links the two when the invoice numbers of the buyer match the invoices of Acme Corporation Ltd.
Where to find it
On the AP portals page, click the Customers tab. The tab shows when at least one account is connected.
Column | What it shows |
Buyer | The buyer name from Ariba. |
Account | The Ariba account that sees the buyer. |
Linked customer | The Kolleno customer, or Not linked. |
Source | Auto if Kolleno linked the buyer. Manual if a user linked it. Empty if the buyer is not linked. |
Last seen | The last time that a run saw the buyer on Ariba. |
To find a buyer, use the search and the filters Source, Status and Connection. The buyers that are not linked are at the top of the list.
How Kolleno finds buyers
Each successful status sync reads the invoice list of the account. Each buyer name in the list becomes a row on the Customers tab. A buyer shows only after a run reads at least one invoice of that buyer. See How AP portal runs work: schedule and manual runs.
Kolleno ignores capital letters and extra spaces in the name. ACME Corp and acme corp are the same buyer.
Each account has its own rows. If two of your Ariba accounts see the same buyer, the buyer shows two times, one time for each account.
How automatic linking works
For a buyer that is not linked, Kolleno compares the invoice numbers of the buyer with the invoice references of all your Kolleno customers. The numbers must be the same, character for character.
If all the matching invoices belong to one customer, Kolleno links the buyer to that customer. The Source is Auto.
If one invoice number matches invoices of two or more customers, Kolleno ignores that number.
If no number matches, or if the numbers match different customers, Kolleno does not link the buyer. The buyer shows Not linked.
Kolleno links the buyer and saves the invoice statuses of the buyer in the same run.
Invoice numbers of the buyer | Matching invoices in Kolleno | Result |
INV-101, INV-102 | Both belong to Acme Corporation Ltd. | Linked to Acme Corporation Ltd. |
INV-101, INV-205 | INV-101 belongs to Acme Corporation Ltd. INV-205 belongs to Beta Ltd. | Not linked. |
INV-101, 1001 | INV-101 belongs to Acme Corporation Ltd. 1001 belongs to Acme Corporation Ltd and to Beta Ltd. | Linked to Acme Corporation Ltd. Kolleno ignores 1001. |
INV-900 | No invoice in Kolleno. | Not linked. |
Link a buyer by hand
On the Customers tab, set Status to Unlinked.
On the row of the buyer, click Link.
In Link a customer, search for the customer by name or reference. Select the customer.
The Source changes to Manual. A later run never changes a manual link.
To link a different customer, open the menu on the row and click Change. You can also use Change to replace an Auto link.
To remove the link, open the menu on the row and click Unlink. Kolleno does not ask you to confirm.
If the customer is already linked to a different buyer on the same account, Kolleno tells you to unlink it there first.
If the customer is linked to a buyer on a different account, Kolleno asks if you want to link it here as well. To link it, click Link anyway.
A new link does not start a run. Kolleno saves the statuses of the buyer at the next run. To see them now, use Run now on the account.
Buyers that are not linked
Kolleno saves no invoice statuses for a buyer that is not linked. The invoices of the buyer are not in Tracked invoices and have no AP portal status. To see their statuses, link the buyer.
When you unlink a buyer, the statuses that Kolleno saved stay, but they do not update any more.
The next run can link an unlinked buyer again. If the invoice numbers of the buyer still match one customer, the next run links the buyer again, with the source Auto. To prevent this, link the buyer by hand to the correct customer.
Things to know
A buyer that is renamed on Ariba becomes a new buyer. The new name shows as a new row, and Kolleno tries to link it automatically. The Last seen date of the old row stops changing.
An old Last seen date can mean that the buyer had no status change in the status change window, or that Ariba renamed or removed the buyer.
A deleted customer. If you delete a Kolleno customer, its buyers show Not linked.
An invoice of a linked buyer has no status. The invoice number on Ariba is different from the invoice reference in Kolleno, or two invoices of the customer have the same reference. Kolleno does not guess which invoice it is.
Common questions
Can I link one buyer to two Kolleno customers? No. A buyer links to one customer.
Can I add a buyer by hand? No. The buyers come from the runs. If a buyer is missing, make sure that the Ariba account can see the invoices of that buyer.
Can I delete a buyer? No. A buyer that you do not need can stay Not linked.
If you cannot find the correct customer for a buyer, contact your Customer Success Manager or email support@kolleno.com.