Which Site an Invoice Belongs To
If you run more than one site, every invoice raises the same question: whose cost is this? Brikly answers it for you where the invoice makes the answer clear, and leaves it to you where it does not.
Single-site businesses can skip this page - every invoice is assigned to your only site automatically.
Matching the delivery postcode
Most supplier invoices print where the goods or supply went: a Deliver To, Ship To or Supply Address block. When an invoice arrives, Brikly reads the postcode from that block and compares it with the postcodes of your sites (in Settings > Locations). If exactly one site matches, Brikly knows where the invoice was delivered.
Brikly only ever uses the delivery or supply address. The Invoice To or head office address is ignored, so an invoice billed to your office but delivered to a cafe still matches the cafe.
Check each site's postcode in Settings > Locations is correct. Spacing and capital letters do not matter - OX28 6HG and ox286hg match the same site. Only owners and admins can edit a site, so ask one of them to correct a postcode.
What happens next depends on what kind of invoice it is:
- Expense invoices (energy, water, rent, services, equipment) delivered to one of your sites are assigned to that site. If each site has its own electricity account with its own supply address, each bill lands on the right site without you lifting a finger.
- Food and consumable invoices delivered to an ordinary site are not assigned automatically yet. Brikly notes where they were delivered, and you choose the site as usual.
- Anything delivered to a central delivery point follows the rules below.
If the invoice has no delivery address (a till receipt, a software subscription) or the postcode does not match any of your sites, Brikly tries the account number next.
Matching by account number
Some suppliers never print a delivery address - broadband, waste collection, phone lines - but they do give each of your sites its own account number. Brikly remembers which site each of a supplier's account numbers belongs to, and places later invoices from that account automatically.
It learns in two ways:
- From the postcode. When an invoice from that supplier is matched by its delivery postcode, Brikly notes that the account number on it belongs to that site.
- From you. When you choose the site for an expense invoice (energy, water, services, equipment), Brikly remembers that account for next time. Choosing a site on a food or consumable invoice does not teach it, because at a central delivery point that choice is about whose cost it is, not where it was delivered.
Picking Shared across sites never teaches it either.
If an invoice's postcode and its account number point at different sites, Brikly trusts the printed postcode for where it was delivered, but leaves the cost site for you to choose.
Delivery accounts on the supplier page
Open a supplier in CostingBrik > Suppliers to see its Delivery accounts: each account number Brikly has learned, the site it belongs to, and how many invoices it has seen. You can change the site or remove an account there. Accounts seen on only one invoice, like a one-off order number, are not listed, but Brikly still uses them.
If the same account number turns up at two different sites, the supplier page shows Seen at Burford and Witney. Choose the right site. Brikly stops using that account until you pick one. Your choice applies to the next invoice; invoices already placed keep their site.
If nothing matches at all, the invoice stays unassigned until you choose.
Central delivery points
Plenty of multi-site businesses take most of their deliveries in one place - a bakery, a production kitchen, a stockroom - and then share the stock out between sites. A single delivery of cleaning chemicals might be split between every site, and the supplier has no idea which items went where.
An owner or admin marks that site as a central delivery point in Settings > Locations (edit the site and switch on Central delivery point; the option appears once you have more than one site). From then on:
- Goods, consumables and equipment delivered there are shared across sites. They are not counted as that site's costs, and the bill goes to your accounting platform without a location, ready for you to split however you already do (by turnover, for example).
- That site's own utility and premises bills still count there. The bakery's electricity is the bakery's cost, so it stays assigned to the bakery.
Shared across sites
Shared across sites is a deliberate answer, not a missing one. You can pick it yourself from the site picker on any invoice, or in the which site is this invoice for? prompt when you submit. A shared invoice:
- is never flagged as unassigned, and the submit prompt does not ask about it again
- is sent to your accounting platform without location tracking
- on a business with more than one accounting organisation connected, still goes to the organisation of the site it was delivered to
Seeing how a site was chosen
Under the site picker on each invoice, a short note explains how the site was decided, for example:
- Matched delivery postcode OX18 4QA
- Matched account C1104470
- Shared across sites, delivered to Carterton
- Set from capture link (when the invoice came in through a site's quick capture link)
You always have the final say
Anything you choose by hand - a site, Unassigned, or Shared across sites - is never overwritten by Brikly, even if the invoice is re-extracted later. Sites set by a quick capture link are kept too. If you change an invoice's category (for example from a food invoice to a utility bill), Brikly re-checks any site it chose itself, but leaves your own choices alone.
See Submitting to Accounting for how sites become tracking categories on the bill.