If you receive many Ariba Network purchase orders each month, you're in an enviable position! 

However, you might dread the work of billing for them. 

You keep track of which POs and line items have been shipped in your order-processing system, so you perform long invoicing sessions on your "swivel net."

That's where you have a window open for your invoicing application and a window open for your Ariba Network account. You look up a PO in your invoicing application, swivel your chair, and create a PO-flip invoice in your Ariba Network account. Then repeat.

There's a better way!

If your customer supports CSV invoicing, you can create invoices automatically from your invoicing application. CSV stands for comma-separated values, which is a file format that applications use for exchanging data. 

Your customer makes a CSV invoice template available for you to download. You use your invoicing application to add invoice details to it, upload it to your account, and voila! You've just sent a bunch of invoices.

So, what's involved?

First see whether your customer supports CSV invoicing:

1. Log in to your Ariba Network account at https://supplier.ariba.com.
2. In the upper-right corner of the application, click your initials > Settings and select Customer Relationships.
3. In the Current table on the Customer Relationships page, click the customer name.
4. Scroll down and look for the CSV INVOICE FIELDS section and the CSV Invoice Template.

If the template is not available, your customer does not support CSV invoicing. You might want to contact your customer to request this feature.

If your customer supports CSV invoicing, download the template and save it on your computer.  You might want to print a copy of the field names and descriptions that appear in the CSV INVOICE FIELDS section, because they explain the data required for each invoice.

Configure your application

Use the CSV Invoice template as a guide for generating new invoices from your order-processing, accounting, or invoicing application. This template is customized for each buying organization; do not attempt to use one among different customers.

Check to see whether your application allows you to export invoice data in CSV format. It must give you control of what data is exported and the order of that data. Most applications support exporting data, either manually or programmatically.

If your application does not support exporting CSV data, you'll need to modify it, which might require you to hire a consultant. If you go this route, you'll want to give the consultant the CSV template, any CSV invoicing instructions from your customer, and a login ID for your company's Ariba Network account. The consultant will need to use your account to test the CSV invoicing process.

Upload the CSV invoice file

After your application generates the CSV invoice file, upload it to your Ariba Network account to send invoices:

1. Click Documents> Create CSV Invoice in the upper-right of the home page.
   
2. Choose the customer name, browse for the file, and click Import CSV Invoice.

Ariba Network uploads the file, validates it, generates invoices, and sends those invoices to the customer.

After you upload invoices to the Ariba Network, they appear as if you entered them online. They display in Outbox> Invoices and they have the same statuses as other invoices.

Best Practices

When planning how to use CSV invoicing, consider the following best practices we’ve learned.

• Ariba does not recommend manually entering invoices into the CSV template; instead, use the export function in your application or generate the file programmatically. Do not use Excel because it removes leading zeroes, adds commas, and can corrupt your invoice data.
  
• Be sure to read the CSV INVOICE FIELDS section in your account and any CSV invoicing instructions your customer has available. These instructions are invaluable, because each buying organization has their own CSV invoicing format. Also, do not modify the first three lines of the CSV invoice file, because they are required to interpret the data.
  
• Allocate a few days of ramp-up time to learn your customer's specific CSV invoice format and to debug your process. It will take a few attempts to format the CSV file correctly. When you upload a file, the Ariba Network performs basic format validation. Then it performs detailed validation against your customer's invoicing  rules. If either of these validation steps fails, then the Ariba Network displays Routing Status "Failed" on the Invoices page of your online Outbox.
  
• The Ariba Network keeps track of which invoices have been successfully uploaded and it issues errors if you attempt to upload them again. Your application must internally mark the POs or line items that have been invoiced so that it doesn't attempt to generate duplicate invoices.
  
• The maximum number lines per CSV invoice file is 2999 and the maximum file size is 1 MB.

For more information on downloading the CSV invoice template, see "Where can I download my customer's CSV invoice template?".