Email inbox

A lot of bookkeeping arrives by email: supplier invoices, receipts, bank statements, payment reminders. The Inbox page connects your mailbox to Bokapsys, sorts every email into a category, and reads the figures from invoices, bills and receipts so you can turn them into records in a click.

Open Inbox from the sidebar.

Note

Nothing reaches your books until you accept it. Bokapsys reads and sorts your mail, but every figure it pulls out is only a suggestion. It becomes part of your books only when you accept it, and even then a bill or invoice is created as a draft that posts nothing until you post or issue it yourself.

Before you start

• You need permission to use the Inbox. If it is missing from your sidebar, ask a workspace admin, or check that your plan includes it.
• You need an Outlook mailbox (such as Microsoft 365 or Outlook.com) or a Gmail mailbox.
• To connect Gmail, your workspace usually needs its own Google app first. A workspace owner or admin sets it up once. See Set up your own Google app for Gmail.

Connect a mailbox

1. On Inbox, click Connect a mailbox (or Add mailbox if you already have one).

2. Choose Outlook or Gmail.

   • If Gmail shows Set up, your workspace has no Google app yet. Choosing it opens the setup steps described below.
   • If Gmail shows Unavailable with Ask a workspace admin to set up a Google app, an owner or admin needs to set it up before you can connect.

3. Sign in to your Microsoft or Google account and approve access. Bokapsys asks for read access to your mail only. It cannot send or delete mail.

4. You come back to the Connected accounts tab, where a Set up your mailbox import card appears for the new mailbox.

If the connection fails, a Mailbox was not connected message at the top of the page explains why, for example that Google refused the sign-in.

Set up your own Google app for Gmail

Gmail mailboxes sign in to Bokapsys through a Google app that belongs to your workspace. You create it in your own Google Cloud account, then give Bokapsys its keys. It takes about 10 minutes and you only do it once per workspace.

Only workspace owners and admins can set up the Google app. They find it on Inbox → Categories, rules & Google app, in the Google app card.

1. Open the setup in either of two ways:

   • On Inbox, click Connect a mailbox and choose Gmail when it shows Set up.
   • Or click Categories, rules & Google app, and in Google app click Set up your Google app.

   The Connect Gmail with your Google app window walks you through four stages: Project, Sign-in screen, Client and Keys. Each stage has buttons that open the right page in Google Cloud.

2. Project. Sign in to Google Cloud as the owner of the mailbox. Create a project, or pick an existing one, and enable the Gmail API. Click Next.

3. Sign-in screen. This is what Google shows when a mailbox connects.

   • In Audience, click Get started if Google asks.
   • Pick Internal if all your mailboxes belong to your own Google Workspace organisation. Otherwise pick External and add yourself as a Test user.
   • In Data access, add the read-only Gmail scope shown in the window (use its copy button), and save.

   Click Next.

4. Client. In Clients, create a client of the type Web application. Add the redirect URI shown in the window (use its copy button so it is exact), then click Create. Click Next.

5. Keys. Copy the Client ID and Client secret from the client you just created and paste them in. The Client ID ends in .apps.googleusercontent.com.

6. Click Save and sign in with Google. Bokapsys saves the app and takes you straight to Google to connect your first Gmail mailbox.

Caution

If your Google app is External and still in testing, Google signs your mailboxes out every 7 days. To avoid this, choose Internal, or publish the app in Google Cloud.

Manage your Google app

Once saved, the Google app card shows the Client ID (partly hidden), that the Client secret is Stored encrypted, who added it and when, which mailboxes use it, and the Redirect URI with a copy button.

• Replace credentials lets you paste a new Client ID and secret. The old secret stops working when you save.
  • If you keep the same Client ID and only change the secret, your Gmail mailboxes stay connected.
  • If you enter a different Client ID, every Gmail mailbox that used the old app is signed out and has to be connected again. Bokapsys tells you how many need to reconnect.
• Remove deletes the Google app. You can only remove it while no mailbox uses it, and Gmail can’t be connected again until a new app is added.

Outlook mailboxes don’t need any of this.

Choose what to import

The setup card decides which emails come into Bokapsys and how they are sorted.

Setting	Options
Import from	Inbox only, Inbox + Sent, or All mail (including archived mail).
How far back	Last 30 days, Last 90 days, Last 12 months, Everything, or a Custom date range.
Sort emails using	AI classification (best accuracy, uses your AI allowance), Keyword rules only (no AI cost; your watch-rule keywords sort the mail and the rest goes to Other), or Hybrid (keyword rules first, then AI for whatever they miss).
What to import	All mail, Financial only (invoices, bills, receipts, statements and emails with PDF attachments), or Only emails matching my keywords.
After the import, keep syncing	Manual only, Every 15 minutes, Every hour, Every 6 hours or Every day.

Click Start import. The import runs in the background, and you can watch its progress on the card. Very large mailboxes import the newest mail first.

Manage connected mailboxes

The Connected accounts tab lists each mailbox with its provider (Outlook or Gmail) and when it last synced.

• Change how often it syncs with the interval picker.
• Click Sync now to fetch new mail straight away.
• Click Disconnect to remove the mailbox. This also deletes the emails, attachments and extracted items Bokapsys stored for it. You can reconnect at any time.

Read and find your mail

The Email inbox tab shows your imported mail.

Categories

Every email is sorted into a category. Click a category at the top to show only its emails. The built-in categories are:

• Financial: Invoices, Bills, Statements, Receipts.
• Everything else: Personal, Newsletters, Notifications, Other.

Only emails in the financial categories have their figures read. An attachment whose name clearly says what it is, such as a file called Checking-Statement-April, is enough on its own for Bokapsys to put the email in the right category.

To add your own categories, see Categories and watch rules.

Search

Type in Search mail to find an email. Search matches by meaning as well as by exact words, so “chasing me for money” can find a payment reminder that never uses those words. The subject counts for more than the body.

Open an email

Click an email to read it. Images in the email, such as logos, load as normal. The email is shown in a sealed-off frame, so nothing in it can run code or reach the rest of Bokapsys. Click Back to inbox to return to the list.

The attached files are listed above the message. Click View to preview a PDF, image, spreadsheet or text file.

Record an emailed invoice or bill

When an email in a financial category has an invoice, bill or receipt attached, opening it shows a preview of the attached file and a Record this document panel beside the message. The panel is filled in from the attachment and marked Needs review. Nothing is created until you save it, and you can change every field first.

Figures come only from an attached document: a PDF, image or spreadsheet. Bokapsys never reads figures from the email text and never follows a link in an email. If an email only links to an invoice (“View your invoice”), the panel says No invoice or bill attached. You can still click Fill in by hand to record it yourself.

1. Check the direction at the top of the panel:

   • Bill to pay for something you owe, such as a supplier’s invoice or a receipt.
   • Invoice to send for an invoice your business issued to a customer.

   Bokapsys picks one and says why, for example “Billed to Acme Ltd, so this looks like a bill to pay” or “Sent from your own mailbox, so this looks like an invoice to send”. Click the other tab if it picked the wrong one.

2. Under Vendor (or Customer), check who it is. If Bokapsys found an existing vendor or customer, it says Matched and whether it matched by email address or by name. Otherwise choose one from the list, or click Add “…” to create a new one. A new vendor or customer is added to your vendors or customers when you save. For a new vendor you can also choose a Default expense account for their future bills.

3. Under Details, check the Vendor invoice # (or Your invoice #), Currency, Issue date and Due date. Leave Due date blank to follow their payment terms. Any field Bokapsys was unsure about is marked Check this.

4. Under Lines, check each line: Description, Expense account (or Revenue account), Qty, Unit price and Tax %. Click Add line to add one, or the bin icon to remove one.

5. Check the totals. The panel shows Subtotal, Tax and Total, and compares the total with the one printed on the file. You see a green tick when they match, or a warning showing both figures when they don’t.

6. For a bill, tick Attach … to the bill to keep the file with the bill.

7. Click Save draft bill or Save draft invoice.

The panel then shows Draft saved, with Open in Bills or Open in Invoices. Saving also marks the email as accepted.

Rules the panel checks

• The right kind of account. A bill line needs an expense account and an invoice line needs a revenue account. Only accounts of the right kind are offered, and a cash account can never be used.
• Complete lines. Every line needs a description, an account and a quantity above 0. A unit price can’t be negative, and the due date can’t be before the issue date. Until these are fixed, the save button stays disabled and the first problem is shown under it.
• Possible duplicate bills. If a bill from the same vendor already looks like this one, you see This may already be in Bills with links to the existing bills. Open them to check. If this really is a new bill, click Save it anyway.
• One record per email. Once an email has been recorded, the panel shows only the saved draft, so the same document can’t be entered twice.
• Invoice numbers. For an invoice to send, the number on the file is kept in the invoice notes, and the invoice gets your next invoice number.

You need permission to create bills (or invoices) to save, and permission to manage vendors (or customers) to add a new one. If a permission is missing, the panel tells you.

Drafts, not postings

A saved bill stays a draft until you post it from Bills. A saved invoice stays a draft, and is neither sent nor posted, until you issue it from Invoices.

Other actions

• Dismiss in the panel, if the email isn’t something you need.
• Read again, next to the direction, reads the attachment again.
• In the email list, hover over an email to Accept or Dismiss it without opening it. Accepting from the list only confirms the reading. It doesn’t create a bill or invoice.
• Above the message, Add as customer or Add as vendor creates a customer or vendor from the sender. If they already exist, Bokapsys tells you and opens the existing record.

Each of these needs the matching permission. For example, you only see Add as vendor if you are allowed to manage vendors.

Import an emailed bank statement

If an email has a bank statement attached as a PDF, CSV or Excel file, click Import as bank statement on the attachment.

The file goes through exactly the same steps as one you upload on Upload Bank Files, including duplicate checks. The attachment shows its progress (Extracting…, Reading rows…, Mapping…, Imported and mapped), and Track import takes you to Mapping Statements. If the same file was already imported, Bokapsys says so and doesn’t add it twice. See Upload bank files.

Summaries and draft replies

• Summarise gives you a short summary of the email, or of the whole conversation it belongs to.
• Draft a reply writes a reply for you. Choose a Tone (Professional, Friendly, Brief or Firm), optionally say What do you want to say, and click Write it. Click Copy to copy the subject and reply.

Caution

Bokapsys never sends email on your behalf. A drafted reply is text for you to copy into your own mail app, check and send yourself.

Categories and watch rules

Click Categories & rules to open Inbox settings. Owners and admins see this button as Categories, rules & Google app, because the same page holds the Google app. There you can:

• Create your own categories, each with a Name, Colour and Icon.
• Create watch rules that sort mail without AI. A rule matches on Sender contains, Subject contains or Keywords, and files matching emails under Categorize as. A rule can also start one of your workflows, and can automatically accept the financial items it matches. An automatically accepted item is still only a draft and never posts on its own.

To get a regular digest of your inbox by email, set it up as a workflow.

Related

Bills

Invoices

Upload bank files

Data and privacy