A Business Central feature that stores received files like vendor invoices and turns them into documents or journal lines, keeping the file linked to the posted result.
Incoming Documents is a standard Business Central feature for capturing files you receive, typically vendor invoices as PDF or photos, before they become anything in the system. Each file is registered as a record on the Incoming Documents page, where it can be reviewed, annotated, and optionally routed through an approval workflow.
From an incoming document record you create the real thing: a purchase invoice, a purchase credit memo, a sales document, or a general journal line. The link survives posting, so from a posted document or its G/L entries you can always jump back to the original file, which auditors appreciate.
The classic OCR flow relied on the built-in OCR service integration (based on the Lexmark ICS service), which sent the PDF out for recognition and created the document from the returned data. That integration has been deprecated, so structured e-invoices now go through the E-Documents framework instead, while unstructured PDFs are handled by AI-based capture apps.
The pattern to keep in mind is the audit trail: file first, document second, link forever. Zentriq Document Capture follows it with AI extraction: you upload a PDF invoice and it creates a purchase invoice draft in Business Central that you review before posting.
Zentriq's AI tools automate many of the manual processes around incoming documents in Business Central. Learn about the Zentriq Agent or try Zentriq PunchOut to see how AI simplifies procurement in BC.