Combined Accounts Payable Operations release notes for upgrades from Yokohama to Australia
Summarize
Summary of Combined Accounts Payable Operations release notes for upgrades from Yokohama to Australia
This consolidated release note provides ServiceNow customers with essential information about upgrading Accounts Payable Operations (APO) from the Yokohama release through Zurich to the Australia release. It highlights new features, changes, removals, and activation steps across these releases to help you prepare for and execute your upgrade effectively. The release notes emphasize improvements in tax validation, AI-driven automation, invoice processing, and supplier collaboration to enhance operational efficiency and compliance.
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Key Features
- Tax Engine Integration: Across all releases, APO integrates with an enterprise-grade tax engine that validates supplier-provided tax against system-calculated tax at the invoice line level. This ensures compliance with regional and global tax regulations and supports automatic tax validation, exception handling, manual revalidation, and tax roll-ups (note: Australia removes supplier tax roll-up, validating only system tax).
- AI and Automation Enhancements:
- Now Assist generative AI capabilities, including GPT-4o-powered invoice data extraction and purchase order line mapping, reduce manual effort and improve accuracy.
- Agentic workflows automate resolution of high volumes of invoice inquiry cases, minimizing human agent workload.
- Email parser AI agent automatically classifies and creates invoice cases from incoming supplier emails.
- Auto-suggestion of invoice owners via AI agents accelerates invoice processing cycles.
- Supplier Collaboration Portal: Suppliers can view invoices and inquiry cases associated with their accounts and manage multiple supplier contacts efficiently.
- Playbook and Exception Management: Playbook activity cards provide real-time invoice status updates and guidance on mapping recommendations. Enhanced exceptions include missing tax codes, currency mismatches, and validation of goods receipts and funds at the line and header levels.
- Invoice Handling Improvements:
- Manual conversion of invoice types (e.g., non-PO to PO invoices) is supported for improved accuracy and compliance.
- Configurable rejection modes allow administrators to tailor exception handling workflows to organizational policies.
- Distribution sets enable automatic splitting of invoice amounts across multiple cost centers or GL accounts, reducing manual data entry.
- Universal Request (UR) Integration: Employees and suppliers can raise and track general case requests through a unified portal, eliminating confusion about support contacts.
- Localization and Accessibility: APO supports multiple languages, though training the DocIntel model is required to process invoices in languages other than English. The Zurich release introduced a dark theme option for improved readability.
Key Changes
- Invoice line status terminology updated for clarity (e.g., “PO matching error” renamed to “Mapping error”).
- Enhanced validation of invoice exceptions related to goods receipt quantities and available funds at both line and header levels, especially when multiple invoices reference the same purchase order.
- Invoices from unrecognized or unverified supplier sources are flagged as exceptions and held for verification to reduce fraud risk and improve payment accuracy.
- Removal of supplier tax roll-up logic in Australia to enforce independent validation of supplier tax amounts.
Activation and Upgrade Considerations
- Accounts Payable Operations must be requested and installed via the ServiceNow Store.
- Before upgrading from Yokohama or Zurich to Australia, ensure that the Tax Code reference field in the Tax Code [snfintaxcode] table is properly configured to support the exception engine validations.
- Administrators should review and configure APO properties via the centralized properties page to control invoice line mapping, ingestion APIs, and exception management according to organizational needs.
- To enable generative AI features, assign the new requester roles explicitly to users for access to Now Assist capabilities within APO.
Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers
- Improved accuracy and compliance in invoice processing through integrated tax validation and exception management.
- Reduced manual workload and faster invoice handling enabled by AI-driven invoice data extraction, line mapping, and automated case management.
- Enhanced supplier engagement and transparency via the Supplier Collaboration Portal and Universal Request system.
- Greater operational flexibility with configurable rejection modes and distribution sets for cost allocation.
- Streamlined upgrade process supported by clear pre- and post-upgrade tasks and centralized configuration management.
Consolidated page of all release notes for Accounts Payable Operations from Yokohama to Australia.
How to use this page
To help you prepare for your upgrade, we have combined the cross-family Accounts Payable Operations release notes onto one page. Read this summary of the new features, changes, and updated information for your product from Yokohama to Australia.
Important information for upgrading Accounts Payable Operations to Australia
Before you upgrade to Australia, review these pre- and post-upgrade tasks and complete the tasks as needed.
| Release | Release notes |
|---|---|
Yokohama |
If you’re upgrading from a previous release, you must configure the reference field in the Tax Code [sn_fin_tax_code] table. The exception engine validates the invoice using the tax code and raises exceptions if necessary. |
Zurich |
No updates for this release. |
Australia |
No updates for this release. |
New features
Between your current release family and Australia, new features were introduced for Accounts Payable Operations.
| Release | Release notes |
|---|---|
Yokohama |
|
Zurich |
|
Australia |
|
Changes
Between your current release family and Australia, some changes were made to existing Accounts Payable Operations features.
| Release | Release notes |
|---|---|
Yokohama |
|
Zurich |
|
Australia |
|
Removed
Between your current release family and Australia, some Accounts Payable Operations features or functionality were removed.
| Release | Release notes |
|---|---|
Yokohama |
No updates for this release. |
Zurich |
No updates for this release. |
Australia |
|
Deprecations
Between your current release family and Australia, some Accounts Payable Operations features or functionality were deprecated.
| Release | Release notes |
|---|---|
Yokohama |
No updates for this release. |
Zurich |
No updates for this release. |
Australia |
No updates for this release. |
Activation information
Review information on how to activate Accounts Payable Operations.
| Release | Release notes |
|---|---|
Yokohama |
Install Accounts Payable Operations by requesting it from the ServiceNow Store. Visit the ServiceNow Store website to view all the available apps and for information about submitting requests to the store. For cumulative release notes information for all released apps, see the ServiceNow Store version history release notes. |
Zurich |
Install Accounts Payable Operations by requesting it from the ServiceNow Store. Visit the ServiceNow Store website to view all the available apps and for information about submitting requests to the store. For cumulative release notes information for all released apps, see the ServiceNow Store version history release notes. |
Australia |
Install Accounts Payable Operations by requesting it from the ServiceNow Store. Visit the ServiceNow Store to view all the available apps, and for information about submitting requests to the store. For cumulative release notes information for all released apps, see the ServiceNow Store version history release notes. |
Additional requirements
If any additional requirements were introduced or changed for Accounts Payable Operations we have noted them here.
| Release | Release notes |
|---|---|
Yokohama |
No updates for this release. |
Zurich |
No updates for this release. |
Australia |
No updates for this release. |
Browser requirements
If any specific browser requirements were introduced or changed for Accounts Payable Operations we have noted them here.
| Release | Release notes |
|---|---|
Yokohama |
No updates for this release. |
Zurich |
No updates for this release. |
Australia |
No updates for this release. |
Accessibility information
Review details on accessibility information for Accounts Payable Operations, such as specific requirements or compliance levels.
| Release | Release notes |
|---|---|
Yokohama |
No updates for this release. |
Zurich |
|
Australia |
No updates for this release. |
Localization information
If there are specific localization considerations for Accounts Payable Operations we have noted them here.
| Release | Release notes |
|---|---|
Yokohama |
Accounts Payable Operations supports multiple languages. The current DocIntel model is trained to extract invoices in the English language only. If you want to process an invoice in the multiple languages supported by DocIntel, you must train the DocIntel model. |
Zurich |
Accounts Payable Operations supports multiple languages. However, the current DocIntel model is trained to extract invoices in the English language only. If you want to process an invoice in the multiple languages supported by DocIntel, you must train the DocIntel model. |
Australia |
Accounts Payable Operations supports multiple languages. However, the current DocIntel model is trained to extract invoices in the English language only. To process an invoice in the multiple languages supported by DocIntel, you must train the DocIntel model. |
Highlight information
If there are specific highlight considerations for Accounts Payable Operations we have noted them here.
| Release | Release notes |
|---|---|
Yokohama |
|
Zurich |
See Accounts Payable Operations for more information. |
Australia |
See Accounts Payable Operations for more information. |