Envelope AI user guide

Day-to-day guide for the people who use Envelope every day · v6.8.47

This guide is for the AP clerk / bookkeeper who processes receipts and invoices, and the managers who review and approve them. Your Gemini Logic consultant handles installation and setup (installing Envelope, connecting Spire and configuring email).

The big picture: receipts and supplier invoices arrive by email, Envelope reads them with AI and (for invoices) matches them to your Spire purchase orders. Your job is to review, approve, and post — not to type. Most days you’ll spend your time confirming what Envelope already figured out.

1. Signing in & finding your way

Open Envelope in your browser at the address your administrator gave you and Sign In with your email and password.

What you’ll see depends on your role

Role	Sidebar pages you get	What you do
Administrator / Site Admin	Dashboard, Activity, Invoices, Statements, Accounts, Rules, (Billing/Settings for admins), User Guide	The full AP workflow — process, approve, and post to Spire
Manager	Dashboard, Activity, User Guide	Review and approve expenses for your assigned people (you don’t post — an admin does the final post)

This guide is built in: click User Guide at the bottom of the sidebar any time to open it inside Envelope. The in-app version also starts with short How-to videos.

Your company can ask that postings show who made them in Spire. If your administrator turned this on for you, Envelope asks for your own Spire username and password right after you sign in. Enter them once and click Connect. Envelope checks them with Spire and keeps them encrypted. From then on, everything you post to Spire is recorded under your Spire user, and invoices are stamped with your Spire initials.

You link once per Spire server. If you switch to a company on a different Spire server, you’ll be asked again.
Your Spire user is shown next to your email at the top right (Spire: username). Click it to change it, for example after you change your password in Spire.
If your Spire password stops working, Envelope won’t post. It asks you to update the login instead, and nothing is sent. Update it, then post again.
Postings Envelope makes automatically (accounts set to auto-post, scheduled payments) still use the company’s Spire account.
Anyone can link their Spire login voluntarily with Link Spire login at the top right, even if it isn’t required.

Administrators: turn this on per person in Settings → Users → Edit → Require their own Spire login. The Spire login column shows who has linked. Reset Spire login makes Envelope forget it, and the person is asked again next time.

The company switcher

If you work across more than one company, use the dropdown at the top of the sidebar to switch between them. Everything you see — the queue, invoices, statements — belongs to the company selected there. (Managers work within their assigned scope and won’t see a switcher.)

2. Your daily rhythm

A typical day looks like this:

Open the Dashboard — glance at the Pending count and any Anomaly Alerts.
Work the Activity queue — review and approve the day’s receipts and card expenses.
Work the Invoices queue — confirm PO matches and post supplier invoices (admin/site admin).
Clear the exceptions — Unrecognized Receipts, invoices under Needs review, anything flagged.
Reconcile statements when they arrive (admin/site admin).

You don’t have to do it in this order — but clearing Pending and the two triage queues daily keeps everything flowing.

3. Statuses at a glance

Every receipt and invoice carries a status badge. Learn these once and the whole app reads easily.

Expenses (Activity):

Badge	Colour	Means
pending	amber	Needs your review / approval
approved	green	A manager approved it; it’s not in Spire yet — waiting for an admin to Post
In Batch	green	Approved and waiting in the card’s batch — it posts with the next Post Batch (see 4.10)
posted	violet	Written to Spire (done)
rejected	rose	Declined, with a reason (done)
Converted to Invoice	indigo	Turned into a vendor invoice for PO matching
Awaiting Confirmation	blue	The cardholder was emailed to confirm before it enters your queue
Pick Account / Waiting on Sender	amber / cyan	The sender matched more than one account — someone must choose which

Supplier invoices (Invoices):

Badge	Colour	Means
pending	yellow	Uploaded and read, no PO match yet
suggested	amber	Envelope found a likely PO but wasn’t confident — confirm it
matched	blue	Matched to a PO and ready to post
approved	green	Approved, ready to post
posted	cyan	Posted to Spire (done)
rejected	rose	Rejected

4. Reviewing & approving expenses (Activity)

The Activity page is where employee receipts and corporate-card expenses land. (Managers: this is your main page.)

4.1 Reading the queue

At the top, four tiles summarize the company: Pending, Awaiting Confirm (only shows when there are some), Rejected (Week), and Posted (Month) — each with a count and dollar total.

Below that you can:

Filter with the tabs: All · Pending · Rejected · Posted. (There’s no “Approved” tab — approved-but-not-yet-posted items appear under All.) If your administrator has turned on Hide rejected transactions, the Rejected tab and tile disappear — rejected items aren’t deleted, just hidden.
Narrow to one account or vendor with the All accounts and All vendors dropdowns. Type a few letters to search — accounts match on name, email, or the card’s last 4 digits.
Search by vendor, account, description, line items, or notes.
Sort by newest/oldest, amount, or vendor.
Load More to page through older items.

Tip: every long dropdown in Envelope (GL accounts, vendors, accounts) is searchable. Click it and start typing — e.g. visa 2100 or travel — then use the arrow keys and Enter to pick.

Rows may carry extra tags: a green REFUND, an orange ⚠️ Potential Duplicate, a blue Reconciled ••••1234, a cyan Delegated, or policy tags (Policy Blocked / Overridden / Warning).

4.2 Reviewing one expense

Click a row to open it. The detail view shows the extracted fields on the left and the receipt image/PDF on the right (click the receipt or Expand to open a full-screen view).

While an expense is pending, you can correct anything before approving:

Amount and HST/Tax (the subtotal recalculates). Tax can be set to 0.00 for a receipt with no tax — Envelope keeps exactly the tax you enter.
Currency — see 4.9
Date, Description, Reference / Invoice #
GL Account — or click Split / Personal Items to divide it across several GLs or take out personal items (see 4.8)
Credit Card Account (corporate) or Vendor (personal/AP)
This is a refund / credit checkbox — see below

Click Save Changes to keep edits. The AI Confidence bar tells you how sure Envelope was about its reading — lower confidence is a cue to double-check against the receipt.

A few other things you may see in the detail view:

Includes tip: $X — on restaurant receipts the amount is what was actually charged, tip included (that’s what your card statement shows). The tax still comes from the bill.
RECEIPT 2 OF 3 IN IMAGE — the photo or PDF held several separate purchases, and each became its own expense. They share the same image; check you’re looking at the right one on it.
⚠ The assigned account … is inactive in Spire — that GL account was disabled in Spire. Pick a different one before approving, or the post will fail.

What Spire receives (personal cards). A personal-card expense posts as an AP invoice on the employee’s vendor. The Description becomes the invoice Memo in Spire (if it’s blank, the memo reads Expense Reimbursement – Vendor), so a clear description makes Spire easier to read. The tax posted is exactly the HST/Tax shown in Envelope. If Spire ever books a different tax amount, a ⚠️ note is added to the expense telling you to check the vendor’s tax codes in Spire.

4.2a History and GL entry

At the bottom of every expense, Line items, history and GL entry has four tabs:

Line items (opens first) — the items and tax breakdown Envelope AI read from the receipt.
Timeline — everything that happened to the expense, newest first: when it arrived, what Envelope AI read, every edit (for example GL account: 6100 → 6250), notes, approvals, posting (with the Spire entry number and Spire user) and any failed post with Spire’s reason.
GL entry — before posting, a preview of the exact journal entry (or AP invoice) Envelope will send: account, memo, debit and credit, with a Balanced check. Nothing is sent to Spire. If the expense can’t post yet (no credit account, account inactive, blocked by policy…) it says why. The preview uses saved values, so Save first to see your changes. After posting, it shows what was sent.
Spire — the Spire entry number, who posted it, and the Spire user. Compare with Spire reads the entry back from Spire and tells you whether Spire still has exactly what Envelope sent.

4.3 Approve or reject

Approve (green check). For an admin/site admin the button is Approve & Post to Spire — it posts in one step. For a manager it’s Approve — it marks the item approved for an admin to post. On a card set up for batch posting the button reads Approve & Save to Batch instead (see 4.10).
Reject (rose X) — opens a reason box (optional) and gives you a brief undo window via the toast before it commits.

You can’t approve an item with no GL account or one that’s blocked by policy until you fix it (or override the policy — see 4.6).

4.4 Approving in bulk

Click Select to enter selection mode, tick the rows (or Select All), then use the bar at the bottom:

Approve All — approves everything selected (it skips anything policy-blocked or missing a GL and tells you).
Reject All — asks for a reason, then Confirm Reject.

A progress bar shows batch actions as they run.

4.5 Uploading receipts by hand

Not every receipt comes by email. Click Upload Receipts, choose the Account it belongs to, then drag & drop up to 20 files (JPG, PNG, PDF) and click Process N Receipts. Envelope reads each one and adds it to the pending queue. Retry Failed re-runs any that errored.

Several receipts in one photo? That’s fine — scan them together. Envelope creates one expense per purchase. A restaurant bill photographed with its tip slip counts as one purchase (the total includes the tip), so it won’t be booked twice.

4.6 Special cases

Refunds / credits. A return or credit shows a green REFUND tag and a minus sign. The amount stays positive — the flag tells Spire to reverse the debit/credit on posting. If Envelope misreads one, toggle This is a refund / credit in the detail view.

Awaiting Confirmation. If an account requires it, the cardholder gets an email to confirm the expense before it reaches your queue. These sit under the Awaiting Confirm tile and clear automatically once confirmed (or once an admin posts).

Pick Account / Waiting on Sender. When an email sender matches more than one account, the item shows Pick Account. Click it and choose the right account to send it into the normal flow.

Policy blocks. If an expense breaks a policy, it’s tagged and can’t be approved as-is. Open it, review the policy panel, and if appropriate click Override Policy Block, type a short reason (a few words), and Confirm Override — then approve.

Potential duplicates. Flagged rows warn you before you approve. If it’s genuinely a distinct expense, approve through the confirmation; otherwise reject it.

Push to Invoice (admin/site admin). If a “receipt” is really a supplier invoice that should go through PO matching, open it and choose Push to Invoice to move it to the Invoices workspace.

4.7 Unrecognized Receipts (expense triage)

(Admin / site admin only.) When receipts arrive from an email address that isn’t a registered account, they collect in an amber Unrecognized Receipts banner at the top of Activity. For each one:

Pick the right person from Select employee…
(Optional) tick Remember sender so future emails from that address route automatically
Click Assign to process it — or Discard if it’s not a real receipt.

4.8 Splitting a receipt & personal items

Click Split / Personal Items next to the GL Account to open the split editor. It shows the Subtotal to allocate (amount minus tax) and one row per line:

Pick a GL account and enter an amount (before tax) on each row. Add an optional Memo under the row — it’s carried into Spire.
+ Add Line adds another business row. Fill from receipt line items builds the rows for you from the receipt, with amounts, memos, and suggested GLs filled in.
Remaining turns green with a ✓ when the rows add up to the subtotal. You can’t save until it does.

Personal items. When a receipt mixes business and personal purchases (e.g. a hotel bill with a personal movie rental), tick Personal on that row, or click + Personal Item. Personal rows need no GL account. The editor shows the split, e.g. Business $180.00 + $23.40 tax · Personal $20.00 + $2.60 tax. The tax on personal items is never claimed.

Personal card: the employee is reimbursed only for the business share.
Corporate card: the personal share (with its tax) goes to the personal-items account your administrator chose — either Due from Employee (they owe it back) or a non-deductible expense account. If no account is set, you’ll see a warning; ask your administrator to set one in Settings → Tax Accounts.

Envelope sometimes spots personal items itself and pre-ticks the Personal box (“AI flagged: …”). Always check before saving. If the whole receipt is personal, reject it rather than splitting. After posting, the detail view shows Personal items: $X before tax.

4.9 Foreign-currency receipts

A receipt in another currency shows its own amount (e.g. USD $100.00) with the CAD equivalent underneath, converted at the Bank of Canada rate for the receipt date.

US receipts often don’t say “USD”, so Envelope can miss it. If a receipt is really foreign, change the Currency dropdown on the pending expense and save. Envelope converts it and switches the GL to that currency’s account if you have one. Tick Always treat Vendor receipts as USD to remember this for the vendor, so future receipts from them come in correctly. These vendor rules are listed on the Rules page. Setting the currency back to CAD with the box ticked removes the rule.

Matching your card statement: your card company converts at its own rate plus a foreign-transaction fee, so the Bank of Canada figure is usually a little off. Enter the CAD amount from your card statement in CAD charged to card and save. Envelope works out the rate from it, posts exactly that CAD amount to Spire, and the expense matches the statement line to the cent. Leave the box blank to use the Bank of Canada rate.

4.10 Batch posting (corporate cards)

Your administrator can switch a corporate card to Batch Posting (shown as a tag on the Accounts page). For those cards:

Approving an expense (Approve & Save to Batch) doesn’t post it — it waits in the batch, tagged In Batch.
On the Accounts page, the card shows Batch — N expenses — $total. Click Post Batch.
Review the journal entry preview (one line per GL account, plus tax and card lines). Then pick the Journal entry date (e.g. the statement period end) and click Post N to Spire.

The whole batch posts as one journal entry. Anything that can’t be batched (e.g. a foreign-currency GL account) is listed with the reason and stays approved — post those individually with Post to Spire on the expense.

5. Vendor invoices & PO matching (Invoices)

(Admin / site admin.) The Invoices page handles supplier invoices and matches them to your Spire purchase orders.

5.1 Getting invoices in

Most arrive by email automatically (Settings → Email → Monitor for vendor invoices; the Invoices page reminds admins when it’s off). To add one yourself, click Upload invoice (it shows Reading invoice… while it works; PDF and image formats accepted). Envelope reads the invoice — number, date, vendor, PO reference, line items, tax, totals, currency — and looks for its purchase order right away.

5.2 The invoice list

Invoices are grouped into tabs, each with a count:

Needs review — no PO found yet, a PO match to check, or a possible duplicate.
Ready to post — matched to a PO and waiting for Post to Spire.
Posted, Rejected, All.

The table shows the vendor, invoice #, date, PO, total, the difference vs the PO (amber when it’s over your limit) and a plain status: No PO found, Check PO match, Ready to post, Posted or Rejected. Use the search box to find a vendor, invoice # or PO.

5.3 Reviewing an invoice

Click a row to open it. The invoice document is on the left; on the right, Invoice vs PO lists each line with its quantity (and how much has been received in Spire), the unit price (with the PO price when it differs) and a check: ✓, Price differs, More than received, Unit differs or No PO line. The totals show the difference vs PO (before tax). Use the arrows at the top to move to the next invoice in the same tab.

The coloured box at the top always tells you the next step, with one main button:

No PO found → Find the PO opens the picker: suggested POs first, then this vendor’s purchase orders (tick Show all vendors if it was billed under another vendor). Click Select on the right one. Try matching again re-runs automatic matching.
Check PO match → Envelope thinks it’s a certain PO (with high / medium / low confidence). Check the lines, then click Yes, that’s the PO — or Choose a different PO. Envelope learns the vendor’s name so the next invoice matches by itself.
Ready to post → a short checklist (amount vs PO, goods received, payment terms, duplicates), then Post to Spire. Change PO if the match is wrong.

There’s no separate approval step — once the PO is confirmed, the invoice is ready to post.

History, GL entry and notes. Under the lines, the same Timeline · GL entry · Spire tabs as expenses (see 4.2a), plus Notes for internal notes on the invoice. The GL entry preview needs the PO chosen first, and shows the accrual, payable, tax and any variance lines before you post. After posting, Compare with Spire reads the lines back from Spire.

5.4 Posting — and the posting checks

Before it posts, Envelope re-checks the invoice against the live PO. It stops and asks you first if:

a line bills for more than has been received in Spire,
the difference vs the PO is over your limit (default $5 or 2%, whichever is higher — set in Settings → Tax Accounts), or
the payment terms printed on the invoice differ from Spire and you haven’t chosen terms (see Payment terms below).

Invoicing a PO in parts. Partial shipments, back-orders and goods not all received are normal. The difference is measured against the PO price of the lines on this invoice (quantity billed × PO unit price), not the whole PO. Billing 4 of 10 bolts at the PO price shows no difference. Lines that aren’t on the PO (freight, for example) count toward the difference and post to the variance account. The lines table shows PO price of these lines under the totals, and a weakly matched line is tagged Not on PO?. Each invoice adds to the PO’s invoiced-to-date total in Spire, so the next partial invoice picks up where this one left off.

Each problem is listed on its own with a tick box (for example Post with the difference). Tick each one you’ve checked, then Post to Spire — or Cancel and fix it first. For terms, Choose terms instead takes you to the Payment terms box. On success you’ll see the Spire transaction number.

Payment terms. Vendors sometimes bill on different or promotional terms — “Net 90 – fall promotion” on a vendor that’s normally Net 30. The Payment terms box on the invoice shows the terms on the invoice next to the terms in Spire (the PO’s terms, or the vendor’s when the PO has none). When they differ, the box turns amber and the invoice list shows Terms differ from Spire.

To post this invoice on the invoice’s terms, click the Use … (matches the invoice) button, or pick any Spire terms code in Post this invoice with.
Will be due shows the due date Spire will record (invoice date + the term’s days).
Clear the picker (×) to go back to Spire’s terms.
This changes only this invoice — the PO and the vendor’s terms in Spire stay as they are. A one-off promotion doesn’t change the vendor’s normal terms.

5.5 Duplicates

If an invoice number already exists for that vendor, the invoice shows a red Possible duplicate banner (and sits in Needs review) — it’s flagged, not blocked. The same banner appears when an employee expense with the same vendor, amount, and date already exists — posting both would book the purchase twice. If you’ve checked and it’s genuinely a different invoice, click It’s not a duplicate to clear the flag.

Already in Spire? Envelope also checks the Spire copy for bills and journal entries that were entered in Spire directly (Envelope’s own postings never count):

an invoice with the same vendor and invoice number as a Spire AP invoice (strong), or the same vendor and amount within 10 days;
an expense with the same vendor and amount as a Spire AP invoice or AP payment within 45 days, or a Spire journal line for the same amount within 7 days that mentions the vendor;
an expense that equals several of the vendor’s Spire AP invoices added together (one payment covering several bills) — the banner lists each invoice.

Same total as vendor invoices. An expense whose total equals one of the vendor’s invoices in Envelope — or several of them added together — gets an orange Potential duplicate banner naming the invoices. It’s usually the vendor’s payment confirmation sent in as a receipt. Posting both would book the purchase twice. It’s not a duplicate clears the flag.

These show a red Possibly already in Spire banner with the Spire record (reference, date, amount, who entered it, transaction number) and an Already in Spire? tag in the lists. Right before posting, Envelope also pulls anything entered in Spire since the last sync. Posting then asks you to confirm (I checked: it’s not in Spire yet). Automatic posting skips these items, and batch posting leaves them out. It’s not a duplicate clears the flag for good — that Spire record won’t flag it again.

5.6 Vendor receipts & payment confirmations

Many vendors email the invoice and then, later, a receipt or “payment received” confirmation for the same purchase. Envelope recognises the second document and attaches it to the invoice it pays instead of creating a duplicate invoice:

The invoice gets a green Paid date mark (with payment method and reference when shown). View receipt opens the payment document.
If the receipt arrives before the invoice, Envelope keeps it as a paid record. When the invoice arrives later, it merges into that record.
One payment for several invoices is recognised too: when the confirmation lists the invoice numbers, or when its amount equals exactly one set of the vendor’s open invoices added together, every invoice it pays is marked paid. (If two different sets add up to the same amount, Envelope doesn’t guess — it waits for you.)
If the invoices it pays were entered straight into Spire, Envelope finds them in its Spire copy and files the confirmation quietly under Statements & payments.
If a receipt can’t be tied to an invoice in Envelope or Spire, it waits in From senders we don’t recognise at the top of the Invoices page.
Payment confirmations never become expenses. If one is emailed from a vendor address Envelope doesn’t know yet (payments@, noreply@ on the vendor’s domain), forwarded by an employee, or uploaded on the Activity page, Envelope recognises it and files it against the vendor’s invoices instead. Confirmations that arrive as plain email text (no attachment) are read too.
In the Payment box, Mark as paid sets the mark by hand. Not paid removes a wrong mark (the receipt file is kept).

Paid is for your bookkeeping in Envelope only — no payment is recorded in Spire.

Vendor statements. A statement of account is never booked as an invoice. Envelope reads each line and checks it against Envelope and the Spire copy:

In Envelope (click to open the invoice), In Spire (with the Spire transaction number), or Not on file — an invoice you don’t have yet. Ask the vendor for it.
A line that Envelope has marked paid but the statement still shows open is noted.
Statements with missing invoices show a red N not on file status and count on the Statements & payments tab. When the missing invoice arrives, or the Spire copy refreshes, the statement checks itself again. Check again does it now; Mark reviewed clears it from the count.

5.7 Emails from senders we don’t recognise

PDF invoices whose sender doesn’t match a known vendor collect in a From senders we don’t recognise box above the invoice list. For each email:

It’s vendor accepts the AI’s suggestion, or Choose vendor… lets you search for the right one. Either way Envelope remembers the sender, so their next email comes straight in.
Read invoice reads the attachment and adds it to the invoice list.
Discard throws it away. Under Choose vendor… you can also ignore this sender for good, or discard everything from them.

5.8 Editing, rejecting and deleting

Use More at the top of an invoice:

Edit details (any status except posted) fixes the invoice number, date, PO number, vendor, currency, amounts or line items. Save, or Save and find PO to look for the purchase order again with your corrections. If you close it with unsaved changes, Envelope asks first.
Reject invoice… asks for an optional reason, which shows on the invoice afterwards.
Delete invoice… is admin-only and isn’t allowed once an invoice is posted.

6. Reconciling card statements (Statements)

(Admin / site admin.) The Statements page matches a corporate-card statement against what’s already been posted.

6.1 Upload & set up

Click Upload and choose the statement file (PDF, CSV, TSV, or TXT). Envelope extracts the lines. Use Assign Account to tell it which card this statement belongs to, and Re-run Matching any time to match again. The status pills up top — All / Partial / Reconciled / Processing / Error — filter your statement list.

6.2 Working the lines

The detail view tiles show Total Lines, Matched, Unmatched, Total Amount, and lines are grouped:

Unmatched Lines (amber) — for each, Request (email the cardholder for the receipt), Match (link it to existing records), Create (make a new transaction from it), or Ignore.
Matched Lines (emerald) — shown when you toggle Show reconciled; auto-matches show a confidence %, manual ones an adjusted tag.
Ignored Lines.

A statement becomes reconciled once every line is matched, created, or ignored. Rewards or points summaries (e.g. Amex “Summary of Points Earned”) are skipped, so purchases aren’t listed twice.

6.3 Requesting a missing receipt

If there’s no receipt for a charge, click Request on the line. Envelope emails the statement’s assigned account asking for it (assign an account first). The line then shows Receipt requested on (date), and the button becomes Re-request (at most once an hour).

When the cardholder replies with the receipt attached, it comes in as a normal expense. If the amount matches the line to the cent, the line is matched automatically. If not, the line shows a cyan RECEIPT RECEIVED tag — use Match to link it yourself.

6.4 Undoing a match

Matched (and ignored) lines have an Unmatch button. The linked transactions become available to match again. If the match booked an adjustment, Envelope first posts a reversing entry to Spire to cancel it. Lines that were Created from the statement can’t be unmatched, because the transaction they created is real.

6.5 Foreign-currency charges

Your card statement is in CAD, but a US receipt is in USD. Envelope compares the receipt’s CAD equivalent to the line. Card issuers add a foreign-exchange fee (about 2.5%), so foreign receipts match within a small band (about 3.5%), as long as the date and vendor also line up. In the match window they appear as e.g. USD $100.00 ≈ $135.00.

A foreign receipt only matches if it’s marked as foreign. If one isn’t matching, check its currency (4.9).

6.6 The Force-Match window

Click Match on a line to open Match Statement Line. It shows a combined pool of employee transactions (cyan TXN tag) and posted vendor invoices (indigo INVOICE tag), closest amounts first. Anything already linked to another line is hidden so you can’t double-match, and the list is sign-aware (a credit line only offers refunds, and vice-versa).

Tick the records that make up the line. The running total tells you when you’re Balanced or shows the Remaining difference. If the selected records don’t add up exactly, pick an Adjustment Account and Offset Account and the button becomes Match & Post Adjustment to book the difference. Otherwise click Match.

7. The Dashboard & anomaly alerts

The Dashboard (everyone) opens with Pending / Posted (Month) / Rejected (Week) / Total Activity tiles, charts (Expense Trend, Top Categories, Spend by Account, Monthly Totals), and a Recent Activity log.

From Spire (admins)

Envelope keeps a read-only copy of the last 12 months of AP (vendor invoices, credit memos, payments) and GL expense-account lines from Spire — including everything entered in Spire directly — refreshed every 4 hours. Sync now refreshes it on demand. The section shows:

Total payable, Overdue and Due in 7 days from Spire’s open AP;
Payables ageing by due date, and the vendors you owe most;
Spend on expense accounts by month and account, split into Posted by Envelope and Entered in Spire;
Possibly already in Spire — expenses and invoices waiting in Envelope that look like something already in Spire (see 5.5).

Spire activity in the feeds. With the Spire activity switch on, entries made directly in Spire appear alongside Envelope’s own:

in Recent Activity, in the order they were entered (e.g. KL entered AP invoice INV-2025-452 from Northwind Supply · $1,881.45);
on the Activity page, between your expenses by date. These show AP invoices and journal entries, not payments. They appear in the All view sorted by date, without an account filter, and follow your search and vendor filter.

Spire rows are tagged Spire and are read-only. A row tagged Matches an Envelope expense/invoice is the Spire record behind a “possibly already in Spire” flag. The switch is remembered on this computer and applies to both places. Envelope’s own postings aren’t repeated as Spire rows.

Anomaly Alerts

The Anomaly Alerts section flags unusual spending — an unusually high expense, a spike in frequency, an unusual category, or a new vendor — colour-coded by severity. Click Run Analysis to check on demand, Dismiss an alert you’ve reviewed, or Mark all read. Alerts are informational — investigate the flagged expense in Activity; there’s nothing to approve here.

8. For managers & approvers

If you’re a manager, you see Dashboard and Activity, and your queue is limited to the people assigned to you.

Approve (green check) marks an expense approved; an administrator does the final post to Spire. You won’t see a “Post” button — that’s expected.
Reject (rose X) with an optional reason.
You can still edit a pending expense, add notes, and override a policy block with a reason before approving.
Approved items don’t have their own tab — find them under the All filter.

Out-of-office delegation

If you’ll be away, ask your administrator to set up a delegation for you (it’s managed in User Management). During the dates you choose, your approvals flow to your delegate, and anything they approve on your behalf is tagged Delegated so there’s a clear trail.

9. How automatic coding works (Rules)

You’ll notice many receipts arrive already coded to the right GL account. That’s Category Rules at work: when a vendor name matches a rule (e.g. anything containing “shell” → Fuel), Envelope pre-fills that GL account at full confidence.

Rules pre-fill the code; they never auto-approve — a person still clicks Approve on every expense. So the day-to-day benefit is simply that matched vendors need almost no editing. (Creating and editing rules is done by an administrator on the Rules page.)

The Rules page also lists Vendor Currency Rules: vendors whose receipts are always treated as a given currency (e.g. USD) when the receipt itself doesn’t say. You create one from the expense itself (4.9); delete it here if it’s wrong. A receipt that clearly states its currency always overrides the rule.

10. Emails you’ll receive

Depending on how your administrator configured notifications, you (or the cardholder) may get emails for:

Email	When it’s sent
Receipt Received	A receipt was captured and turned into a pending expense
Expense Confirmation	The cardholder is asked to confirm an expense before review
Expense Approved	An expense was approved
Expense Rejected	An expense was rejected (includes the reason)
Policy Violation	A receipt tripped a policy rule (blocked or warning)
Processing Error	A receipt couldn’t be read and needs attention
Missing Receipt #…	A statement charge has no receipt — reply with the receipt attached (keep the subject line as-is so it links back to the charge)

(Which of these are on is set by your administrator. An “Expense Posted” toggle exists but is off by default.)

11. Search, export & shortcuts

Search on the Activity page covers vendor, account, description, line items, and notes.
Export CSV downloads exactly the list you’re looking at — same tab, search, sort, and account/vendor filters — as transactions-YYYY-MM-DD.csv (Date, Vendor, Account, Amount, Tax, GL Account, Status, Description, Reference). When an account or vendor filter is on, its name is added to the file name.
Keyboard shortcuts on the Activity queue: j / ↓ next · k / ↑ previous · Enter open · Esc close · g first · Shift+G last · ? show all shortcuts.

12. Glossary of badges

Badge	Where	Meaning
REFUND	Activity	A return/credit; reverses the entry on posting
Awaiting Confirmation	Activity	Cardholder must confirm before review
Pick Account / Waiting on Sender	Activity	Sender matched multiple accounts; choose one
Potential / Visual Duplicate	Activity	Looks like an expense you already have
Reconciled ••••1234	Activity	Linked to a card-statement line
Delegated	Activity	Approved by an out-of-office delegate
Policy Blocked / Overridden / Warning	Activity	Policy rule status
In Batch	Activity	Approved, waiting for the card’s next Post Batch
RECEIPT 2 OF 3 IN IMAGE	Activity	One of several purchases found in the same photo/PDF
Includes tip	Activity	The amount includes a restaurant tip
Personal items: $X	Activity	Part of the receipt was personal and not expensed
Paid	Invoices	A vendor receipt / payment was attached (Envelope only, not Spire)
CREDIT	Statements	A credit/refund line on the statement
Receipt requested	Statements	The cardholder was emailed for this receipt
RECEIPT RECEIVED	Statements	A receipt came back but needs a manual Match
suggested	Invoices	Likely PO match — confirm it
matched	Invoices	Matched to a PO, ready to post
Possible duplicate	Invoices	Invoice number already exists for this vendor
adjusted	Statements	Force-matched with a booked difference

13. Everyday troubleshooting

I can’t approve an expense. It’s missing a GL account or is blocked by policy. Set the GL, or open it and Override Policy Block with a reason, then approve.

The “Post to Spire” button isn’t there. For invoices, the invoice must be matched (or approved) and have a PO. For expenses, only admins/site admins post — if you’re a manager, approve it and an admin will post.

Posting an invoice was blocked. Envelope found an over-receipt, a variance beyond tolerance, or payment terms that differ from Spire’s. Check the flagged lines against your receiving; if it’s legitimate, confirm Post anyway to override. For terms, cancel and choose the right terms in the invoice’s Payment terms box, or confirm to post on Spire’s terms.

A receipt didn’t show up. If it came from an unregistered sender, look in Unrecognized Receipts (Activity) or From senders we don’t recognise (Invoices). Otherwise your administrator can check the mailbox connection.

An amount or account is wrong. Open the item while it’s pending and edit it — everything but a posted record is editable. Once posted, it’s locked (the Spire entry exists).

I approved something by mistake. Approvals show a brief undo option in the toast. After that, ask an administrator — a posted entry has to be handled in Spire. For an item In Batch that hasn’t posted yet, an administrator can still post it on its own, or fix it before the batch posts.

The split says it doesn’t balance. The rows (business and personal) must add up to the Subtotal to allocate — amount minus tax. Check Remaining: add a row or adjust an amount until it shows $0.00 ✓. If you change the amount or tax, the subtotal changes too.

The GL account says it’s inactive. It was disabled in Spire. Pick an active account; if the list looks out of date, ask an administrator to re-sync GL accounts.

A US receipt won’t match the card statement. It’s probably still marked as CAD. Set its Currency (4.9) and run matching again.

Spire shows a different tax than Envelope. Envelope now sends the exact tax, and adds a ⚠️ note to the expense if Spire changes it. That usually means the vendor’s tax codes in Spire are set up wrong (e.g. two codes adding up to 18%). Fix the vendor in Spire and correct that invoice.

A vendor’s receipt became a second invoice. Newer versions attach it to the invoice it pays (5.6). If one slipped through, reject the extra invoice and use Mark as paid on the real one.