In the VAT Recovery section, under the Manage Expenses tab, you can select specific invoices you'd like to work with. Use the filters to narrow down your search results to the exact batch you need, and then click the Batch Actions button.

This feature offers a range of useful tools, allowing you to perform specific actions on the selected batch of invoices in one go.

Below, you’ll find an explanation of each tool and what it allows you to do.

You can easily change the vendor information for all filtered expenses. By default, any new vendor data entered during this batch action will overwrite the existing values. However, if you prefer to update only specific vendor details, you can select the option to do so. When you check the box for Update only specific vendor details, only the fields with actual data will be modified.

Please note that once these changes are made, this action cannot be undone, so be sure to review your updates carefully before proceeding.
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This check validates the VAT number provided in the Vendor VAT Number column and updates the results in the VAT Number Format and VAT Number Verified fields within the Manage Expenses table.

The validation process functions the same as VAT number validation in Data Entry. It is triggered automatically when the expense vendor is updated or when an expense is saved in Data Entry. The results are typically populated within a few minutes.

You can easily change the status of your filtered expenses. To begin, please select the status group you wish to update. You can choose from Correction status, Refund status, or Compliance status.

Once you’ve made your selection, the system will display the relevant statuses available for updating. Choose the appropriate status to proceed with the update for your filtered expenses.

The optional fields allow you to add metadata to your expenses, enabling you to store additional information about your invoices for future reference. While these fields are not directly related to VAT recovery, they can enhance your record-keeping.

To activate an optional field, simply check the box to the left of the field name. After that, navigate to the right section, where you’ll find various options available in a dropdown menu for each line.

You can easily batch-change the expense category for a selected Country of Refund. Please note that this option is available for only one Country of Refund at a time. To proceed, follow these steps:

You can batch change the Country of Refund for multiple expenses, but this feature is only available for expenses in the INCOMPLETE, READY, or EXCLUDED statuses. To change the Country of Refund for several expenses, follow these steps:

Note: Changing the country will recalculate the VAT amount and potential cashback based on the rules applicable to the newly selected country, using the total gross amount of the entries.

This feature is specific to Canada and allows you to batch-change the province for your expenses. Please note that this option is only available for expenses in the INCOMPLETE, READY, or EXCLUDED statuses, and you can only change the province for one Country of Refund at a time.

To batch change the expense province for a selected Country of Refund, follow these steps:

If you’ve imported data to child entities and need to file a claim for your entire group, you can easily move expenses between entities. Please note that this batch change of the entity is only available for one entity at a time and applies only to editable expenses in the INCOMPLETE, READY, or EXCLUDED statuses.

Keep in mind that changing the entity will trigger a recalculation of the VAT amount and potential cashback based on the rules associated with the newly selected entity. The calculation will be based on the total (gross) amount of the lines.

To move expenses between entities, follow these steps:

You can batch change the expense type to either Simplified or Regular expense. Please note that this change will impact how the expense is reported to the tax administration during the claim process. It’s important to understand the implications of choosing Simplified or Regular invoices for the country where you are claiming.

When changing the expense type, keep the following in mind:

Make sure to review your choices carefully to ensure compliance with VAT regulations.

Run Compliance assessment and other smart checks for the expenses.

Learn more in our detailed article on Compliance & Smart checks.

This action is ideal for expenses that were imported into the system and have documents consisting of multiple pages, where each page represents a new expense. By splitting these documents, each page will become a separate expense, with all optional and custom fields replicated. Additionally, all data from the parent expense—such as expense date, country of refund, currency, and vendor—will be copied to the newly created expenses.

When dealing with multi-page invoices or travel reports combined into one PDF, you can easily split these documents into individual expenses. Here’s how:

Filtered expenses will be analyzed for potential duplicates. Once the process is complete, a duplication key and duplication percentage will be assigned to each potential duplicate group. You can use these parameters to filter expenses from the Manage Expenses table.

To help ensure you don't have duplicate entries, utilize the duplicates check feature, which works by:

This feature streamlines the identification of duplicate entries, allowing you to maintain accurate and organized expense records.

You can now see all potential duplicates. The "Duplication key" acts as an identifier, showing which invoices are duplicates of each other; invoices sharing the same duplication key indicate they are duplicates.

To analyze duplicates more effectively, filter by 100%, 70%, and 50% duplication first. Additionally, you can sort the results (ascending/descending) by duplication key. Click on the ID number of an invoice (ensure the ID filter is activated) to view the transaction image and compare it with other duplicates. From there, you can decide which invoice to keep and which to exclude.

In certain situations, such as when receiving simplified invoices from restaurants in Spain, you may need to request an invoice correction. Here’s how to do it:

This process helps ensure compliance and accuracy in your invoicing, so please follow these steps carefully.

The invoice correction service incurs an additional cost, which will be charged to you. Please ensure that you have an agreement in place with VAT4U regarding this service before proceeding.

Creating a claim using batch actions gives you the flexibility to select only the expenses you want to include. VAT4U will automatically preselect the Claimant, Country of Refund, and Period for the claim based on the filtered expenses. It's important that the filtered expenses pertain to a single entity and a single country of refund.

When starting a claim, you'll need to choose the type you want to create:

To begin the claim process, ensure you filter the expenses for a single Applicant and Country of Refund. This will help streamline your claim submission and ensure all necessary criteria are met.

If you have an invoice with multiple lines of the same item within the same category, you can leverage this batch action to streamline the invoice by grouping these multiple lines into a single line with the total amount.

Currently, when importing invoices, the system creates separate lines even if the item description, VAT rate, and invoice number are identical. While this is technically accurate, it can complicate validation for VAT refund purposes. To streamline processing, lines resulting from the same category can be grouped after import using the "Summarize expense items" batch action.

This batch action significantly reduces the number of line items you need to manage and helps streamline your workflow. Depending on the number of invoices and items within your scope, the summarization process may take some time, so the results may not be immediately available.

Some imported expenses arrive without their invoice or receipt - they might be pre-excluded, failed or still pending to be retrieved. This batch action fetches those documents from the system the expenses came from, for whichever expenses you select or filter.

An import normally brings two things across: the expense data, and the document behind it. When only the data arrives, it is almost always one of two reasons.

The import was not set to fetch documents. Some imports are run for the figures alone, or the column holding the document links was never mapped. The expenses exist; nothing was ever queued to download.

The expense was excluded at import time. When an expense lands as Excluded, its document download is cancelled on purpose — there is no point spending time and money fetching a receipt for an expense nobody will claim. But exclusions get lifted: a VAT registration is added, a category is corrected, a threshold changes. The expense becomes claimable, and now the missing document is a problem, because a VAT claim needs it.

A third, rarer case: the download was queued but never completed — the retrieval failed, or got stuck part way.

This action covers all three.

It only helps for expenses imported from a connector or a file with document links — SAP Concur, and other sources whose expenses carry a reference to where the document lives. An expense typed in by hand has nothing to fetch from.

Up to 10,000 expenses can be processed in one run. Narrow your filters if you have more.

Nothing is started until you click Retrieve documents. The preview step is a genuine dry run — you can go back or cancel and no document is queued.

Four numbers describe what will happen:

Below them you get the expense IDs going into the retrieval, as clickable links, and a table of everything skipped — grouped by reason, with example IDs so you can go and look.

A document that is already queued or has previously failed is not skipped — it is restarted. A queued document is not proof that a retrieval is actually coming, and this is how a stuck one gets moving again.

Documents are fetched in the background, so the action finishes immediately and the work continues after you close the window. There are three places to watch it.

The results step tells you what was queued, straight after you confirm. Worth a screenshot if you are working through a large backlog.

Report → Running Jobs is the live view. Look for a job group named "Retrieve expense documents for N expenses" — one job per document, each moving to finished or failed. If the original import was set up to run OCR and compliance checks, you will see a second group, "Smart checks for retrieved expense documents", starting as documents arrive.

The import page shows the same documents in its own document statistics, because retrieved documents are filed under the import the expense came from. This is the best view when your expenses all came from one import.

And of course the expenses themselves: open one and the document is attached, with the usual processing — data extraction, compliance checks — following on.

How long it takes: each document is fetched individually from the source system, so a few hundred documents is minutes, not seconds. Larger batches run for a while. Nothing is lost if you close the browser.

Running it twice is safe. An expense that already has its document is skipped, and even if a document arrives in the moment between the check and the fetch, the retrieval recognises it and stops.

Excluded expenses are not un-excluded. This action fetches documents; it changes nothing about status, category or claimability. Lift the exclusion separately — before or after, in either order.

Some retrievals will fail, and that is informative. The most common reason is that the source system has no receipt for that expense — a mileage claim or a per-diem, for example. The failure is recorded against the document in the Running Jobs report and on the import page, so you can tell "no document exists" apart from "the download broke".

Preview and result may differ slightly. For accounts that read reports from the analytics database, the preview counts come from there and are re-checked against live data before anything is queued. A small difference between the two numbers is expected, not a fault.

Every expense in scope was skipped. Read the skip table — most often everything already has its document, which is good news. If the reason is "no remote document reference", those expenses never carried a document link and this action cannot help; the documents have to be uploaded, or the expenses re-imported from a source that supplies them.

Check Report → Running Jobs for the retrieval group. If the jobs failed, the recorded reason usually says whether the source system refused the request or simply had no document. If they never appear, contact VAT4U support.

More than 10,000 expenses are in scope. Narrow the filters — by import, by entity, by period — and run it in several passes.

The tile is on the first step of Batch actions, alongside the other actions. If the whole Batch actions button is missing you do not have edit rights on the expenses in view.