Reviewing supplier bank details on invoices

Cortena extracts Bank details from supplier invoices so you can pay and export with confidence. Because a single wrong digit can send money to the wrong account, the invoice detail view validates what it can and highlights what you must check manually, especially on scanned PDFs.

Who this is for: AP clerks and reviewers who approve invoices for payment or accounting export, working with European IBAN invoices, US domestic accounts, and other international bank formats.

1. Where to review bank details

Open any payable invoice and find Bank details in the header area (next to Supplier and Recipient).

You may see:

• Bank name
• IBAN
• Account (domestic account number)
• Routing (sort code, ABA routing, BSB, IFSC, etc.)
• BIC / SWIFT

Hover the ! markers or the amber Bank details box for an explanation. Compare every value with the invoice PDF before you approve payment or export.

2. What Cortena can verify automatically

Cortena runs deterministic checks when the bank format supports them:

When a check passes, Cortena shows no warning on that field.

When a check fails, you see a red !: the value is invalid or will not be accepted on export. Fix it or confirm against the PDF before proceeding.

3. Red !: invalid or export warning

A red ! next to a bank field means one of:

1. Checksum or format failed (e.g. IBAN check digits are wrong, BIC is malformed, US routing fails the ABA check).
2. Accounting export will omit the field: the value is stored on the invoice but does not pass validation for your accounting export (for example a domestic account number placed in the IBAN field).

What to do: Hover for the specific message, open the PDF, and correct the field. Users with Change invoice bank details can edit directly on the invoice (see section 6).

4. Amber !: manual review required

Some bank identifiers look valid but cannot be proven correct automatically. This is common for domestic account numbers in countries that do not use IBAN-style checksums on the account itself.

Cortena marks these with:

• An amber highlight on the whole Bank details section (on PDF/scan invoices)
• An amber ! on individual fields that need your eyes on the document

Why this matters: Document extraction can misread one digit in a long account number (for example a US account ending in …816 instead of …814). Amber warnings mean: compare every digit to the PDF before payment.

Structured e-invoices (XML) skip the amber section highlight because bank data comes from the structured file, not from PDF extraction.

5. European IBAN vs US domestic

European (and IBAN-country) invoices

• Prefer IBAN as the primary payment identifier.
• Cortena validates the IBAN checksum. If it passes, many digit errors are caught automatically.
• BIC is format-checked when present.

US (and similar domestic) invoices

• Invoices often show routing number + account number instead of IBAN.
• Cortena can validate the routing number (ABA checksum).
• The account number has no checksum: Cortena prompts manual review on scanned PDFs.
• Treat amber warnings as mandatory before treasury payment or bank export.

6. Correcting bank details

If extraction is wrong:

1. Compare with the PDF (or supplier master data).
2. If your tenant has Edit invoice bank details enabled and you have Change invoice bank details, click the field in Bank details to edit inline.
3. Check Activity: user bank-detail changes appear as a highlighted row.

Synced (exported) invoices stay locked.

Related: Editing invoices.

7. Before payment or export: checklist

• Open the invoice PDF side by side with Bank details
• Resolve any red ! (invalid IBAN, routing, or export omission)
• For every amber !, confirm account and routing digits character by character
• For US suppliers, never rely on routing validation alone: always verify the account number
• After edits, confirm Activity if someone else changed bank details earlier

Tips and limitations

• Warnings appear on invoice detail; they do not block payment automatically in all integrations. You remain responsible for approving correct coordinates.
• Cortena does not yet alert when bank details change vs previous invoices from the same supplier (planned separately).
• Banking (transaction reconciliation) and Bank details on payables serve different purposes. This article is about supplier payment coordinates on invoices.

Quick reference