What is Email Forwarding for Document Scanning?

Email Forwarding for Document Scanning helps you collect purchase and expense documents directly in Refrens through a dedicated email address.

When someone sends an email with supported bill attachments to this address, Refrens AI scans those attachments and adds them to your business. You can then review the scanned data, confirm vendor details, and save the document as a purchase or expense record.

This is useful for businesses that receive vendor invoices, supplier bills, employee expense receipts, or reimbursement documents by email.

Where to Find Your Refrens Expense Email Address

To find your dedicated expense email address, just Go to Business Settings > Forwarding Channels:

How It Works

Here is the basic flow:

1. Copy your dedicated Refrens expense email address.
2. Share it with vendors, employees, or your accounts team.
3. Ask them to send vendor bills, invoices, or expense documents to this address.
4. Refrens checks incoming emails for supported attachments.
5. Supported attachments are automatically scanned by Refrens AI and added to your business for further review.
6. Review the scanned data in Refrens and save it as a purchase or expense record.

Step 1: Copy Your Dedicated Expense Email Address

Go to Settings > Forwarding Channels > Inbound Expense Email:

You will see a dedicated email address created for your business.

This email address is used to receive vendor bills and expense documents for OCR scanning.

Copy this email address and share it with the required people.

Step 2: Set Up the Allowlist Before Sharing the Forwarding Email

Before vendors, employees, or team members send bills to your Refrens expense email address, make sure they are added to the Allowlist.

The Allowlist helps you control who can send documents to your forwarding email.

Only approved senders can submit vendor bills, invoices, and expense documents to your Refrens account for AI Document Scanning.

This helps prevent unwanted emails, incorrect documents, or bills from unknown senders from entering your scanning flow.

How to Allow Internal Team Members

Under the Internal members section, you will see your business team members listed with a toggle next to each email address.

To allow an internal team member to send bills or expense documents, just turn on the toggle next to their email address.

Once enabled, that team member can send documents to your Refrens expense email address.

How to Allow External Senders

External senders include vendors, suppliers, accountants, or anyone outside your Refrens business team.

To add an external sender, rnter the sender’s email address under External senders, and Click Add.

Once the email address is added, that sender can email vendor bills, invoices, or expense documents to your Refrens expense email address.

Step 3: Share the Email Address with Vendors and Employees

After copying the email address, share it with the people who regularly send bills or expense documents to your business.

For example, you can ask vendors to send invoices directly to this address. You can also ask employees to send travel bills, food bills, reimbursement receipts, or other expense documents to the same email address.

Step 4: Sender Emails the Bill or Expense Document

The sender should attach the bill, invoice, or expense document to the email.

Supported file types include PDF, PNG, and JPEG.

Refrens picks up supported attachments from the email and adds them for OCR scanning.

For better scanning results, make sure the attached document is clear and readable. Blurry images, password-protected files, or incomplete invoices may not scan correctly.

Completion Notifications

Once an inbound email is processed for AI Document Scanning, Refrens sends a completion notification to the sender.

The notification method depends on whether the sender is an internal team member or an external sender.

• Internal team members: If the sender is a user in your Refrens business account, they receive a notification inside their Refrens account.
• External senders: If the sender is a vendor, supplier, accountant, or any other external email address, they receive an email notification.

No other recipients are notified automatically. The completion notification is sent only to the sender of the inbound email.

Step 5: Refrens Adds the Attachments for AI Document Scanning

Once the email is received, Refrens checks the email for supported attachments.

The attachments are then automatically scanned and added to your business for review and verification.

Once added, you will recieve a notification for the same:

(Not that this may take 20-30 sec to reflect in your Refrens Account.)

Where to View Scanned Documents?

After uploading the files, go to Purchases > Purchases and Expenses > Scanned Documents:

Here, you can view all the scanned documents:

You can filter ocuments by: All, Scanned, Failed, and Added from the different tabs.

Understanding Scanned Document Status

Each scanned document will show a status based on its processing stage.

Scanned means the document has been scanned successfully and is ready to be added as a Purchase/Expense.

Failed means the system could not scan the document properly. You may need to upload the document again or check the file quality.

Added means the scanned document has already been used to create a Purchase/Expense record.

How to Create a Purchase/Expense from a Scanned Document?

Once the document status is Scanned, click on Add To Purchase:

The system will open the scanned document and the purchase draft side-by-side:

On the left, you will see the uploaded vendor invoice.

On the right, you will see the draft Purchase/Expense record created using the scanned details.

This helps you compare the original document with the system-created draft before saving it.

Confirm Vendor Details

Before creating the purchase record, the system will try to match the vendor details from the scanned document with your existing vendors.

If a matching vendor is found, you will see a Confirm Vendor Details popup:

Here, you can compare:

• Vendor details parsed from the document
• Your registered vendor details in Refrens

If the details are correct, click on Confirm Vendor.

If you do not want to use the matched vendor, click on Skip & Create New to record it as a new vendor.

Review the Purchase/Expense Draft

After confirming the vendor, check the purchase/expense draft carefully.

If needed, open the Used tab to view the data parsed by the system from the uploaded document:

Save the Purchase/Expense Record

Once you have reviewed and verified the details, save the purchase/expense record.

The scanned document will now be linked to the created Purchase/Expense.

After the record is created, the document status will change from Scanned to Added.

In the Linked To column, you will see the linked purchase/expense number, such as UG-00178.

You can click on this number to open the created purchase/expense record anytime.

Changing the Forwarding Address

You can change your dedicated Refrens expense email address from the Forwarding Channels settings.

This is useful if the current forwarding address has been shared with the wrong people, is receiving unwanted emails, or needs to be reset for internal control. You may also want to change it when vendors, employees, or team responsibilities change.

To change the forwarding address:

1. Go to Settings > Forwarding Channels >Rotate Address.
2. Refrens will generate a new dedicated expense email address for your business.
3. Copy the new email address.
4. Share the updated email address with vendors, employees, accountants, or team members who need to submit bills and expense documents.

After rotating the address, use the new email address for future bill and expense document submissions.

Important Note About Profile URL Changes

Your Refrens expense email address is linked to your business profile URL.

So, if you change your business profile URL, your forwarding email address will also change automatically.

Because of this, avoid changing your profile URL frequently unless required.

If your profile URL is changed, go to Settings > Forwarding Channels and check your latest Refrens expense email address.

Share the updated email address with vendors, employees, accountants, or team members who send bills and expense documents to Refrens.

Attachment Limits for Email-Based AI Document Scanning

You can send up to 10 documents in one email for AI Document Scanning.

The total size of all attachments in one email should be 20 MB or less. For example, if you attach 5 files, their combined size should not exceed 20 MB.

If you need to scan more than 10 documents or your attachments are larger than 20 MB in total, send them in separate emails.

For better scanning results, make sure the files are clear, readable, and in supported formats such as PDF, PNG, or JPEG.

Check Emails in the Inbound Message Log

Refrens also shows an Inbound Message Log for your forwarding email address:

You can use this log to check the emails received on your Refrens expense email address and track whether they were accepted for AI Document Scanning.

The Inbound Message Log helps you see:

• When the email was received
• Who sent the email
• The email subject
• The current status of the email
• The reason, if the email was failed or rejected

This is useful when a vendor or employee says they have already sent a bill, but the document is not visible in your scanning flow. You can check the log to confirm whether the email was received and whether it was processed successfully.

What the Status Means

The Inbound Message Log can show the following statuses:

• Received: Refrens has received the email sent to your forwarding address.
• Accepted: The email has passed the basic checks and is accepted for AI Document Scanning.
• Queued: The email attachments are waiting in the scanning queue.
• Completed: The email attachments were processed successfully and added for scanning.
• Failed: The email could not be processed because of an issue.
• Rejected: The email was not accepted for scanning.

If an email is Failed or Rejected, check the Reason column to understand why it was not processed.

For example:

• SENDER_LACKS_PERMISSION: The sender is not added to the Allowlist.
• RATE_LIMIT: The email could not be processed because the allowed usage or rate limit was reached.

If the sender lacks permission, add the sender to the Allowlist and ask them to resend the email.

Check Your Usage Cycle

The Usage this cycle section shows how many email-based AI Document Scanning requests you have used in the current cycle.

For example, if it shows 2 / 500, it means 2 requests have been used out of the 500 available in your current cycle.

You should check this section if emails are not getting processed and you see a rejection reason such as RATE_LIMIT in the Inbound Message Log.

If your usage limit is reached, new emails may not be accepted for scanning until the cycle resets or your limit is increased.

In such cases, contact your account manager to increase your usage cycle or enable a higher limit for your business.

Benefits of Email-Based Collection

Email-based collection helps your team save time and reduce repetitive work.

Instead of handling bills through inboxes, downloads, folders, and uploads, you can collect documents directly in Refrens for scanning.

This helps your business:

• Collect bills faster.
• Reduce manual upload work.
• Improve expense document tracking.
• Speed up purchase and expense entry.
• Keep vendor bills connected with Refrens records.
• Make document scanning easier for your team.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can vendors directly email invoices to Refrens?

Yes. You can share your dedicated Refrens expense email address with vendors. When they send invoices with supported attachments to this email, Refrens scan them and adds them to your business account.

Can employees send expense bills to this email address?

Yes. Employees can send expense documents or receipts to the dedicated Refrens expense email address. Refrens picks up supported attachments, scans them, and adds them to your business.

Which file types are supported?

Supported file types include PDF, PNG, and JPEG.

Does Refrens automatically save the purchase or expense record?

No. Refrens adds the document for OCR scanning and prepares scanned data for review. You need to verify the details, confirm vendor information, and save the purchase or expense record.

What happens if the vendor already exists in Refrens?

Refrens tries to match the vendor details with your existing vendor records. If a match is found, you can confirm the vendor and continue.

What happens if the vendor is new?

You can add the vendor as a new vendor before saving the purchase or expense record.

What type of documents can I send?

You can send vendor bills, supplier invoices, employee expense bills, reimbursement receipts, and other purchase or expense documents supported by AI document scanning.

Who can send bills to my Refrens expense email address?

Only senders added to the Allowlist can send bills and expense documents to your Refrens expense email address. For internal team members, turn on the toggle next to their email address. For external senders such as vendors, suppliers, or accountants, enter their email address under External senders and click Add.

In case you need further assistance, reach out to us on live chat support or drop an email at care@refrens.com.

Updated on: 27/06/2026