Automated invoice replies

What Navigator sends automatically

Navigator has three automated reply templates, triggered by the outcome of the validation pipeline described in Automated invoice creation:

Replies are sent automatically — your team doesn't click anything. Each reply is logged as a task in Navigator (in the archived state) against the original invoice, so you can see exactly what went out.

See the full copy of each email in the Automated emails catalogue — Ingestion section.

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements go out when the invoice passed validation. They confirm receipt, give the invoice reference, and point the supplier to the Kismet provider portal where they can track progress themselves — reducing how often they email asking "did you get my invoice?".

Which acknowledgement is sent depends on whether the supplier has claimed their profile:

Claimed providers

A claimed provider is one who has signed up to the Kismet provider portal and verified their identity. They already have a dashboard with invoice tracking, so the acknowledgement takes them straight there:

See the full template: Invoice received — claimed provider.

Unclaimed providers

An unclaimed provider hasn't set up their profile yet. The acknowledgement is the same confirmation but with a one-click path to claim their profile:

See the full template: Invoice received — unclaimed provider.

Both acknowledgements are sent from your account's email domain and threaded to the original invoice email, so the supplier sees the reply in the same conversation.

Rejection — issues with the invoice

When an invoice fails validation with one or more failed outcomes (see What's rejected outright), Navigator emails the supplier with a specific list of what's wrong:

See the full template: Invoice submission issues.

What the supplier sees listed

Only errors with a failed outcome appear in the email. The common ones are:

• ABN mismatch — the ABN on the invoice doesn't match the ABN we have on file for this supplier
• ABN cancelled or banned — the ABN is inactive in the Australian Business Register or on an enforcement list
• Invoice total doesn't match line items — the declared total doesn't add up
• ECEI code used for an adult participant — an Early Childhood Early Intervention code was claimed for a participant over the age limit
• Adult-only code used for a child participant — the inverse age rule
• Cancellation without a valid reason code
• Invalid GST code

Review-required issues (budget shortfalls, date mismatches, unrecognised codes, and everything else covered in What's blocked for review) are not sent back to the supplier automatically — they go to your team for manual action instead. Your team decides whether to amend, approve, or manually reject with a reason.

When replies are suppressed

Automated replies are skipped in a few specific cases. Understanding why is useful when a supplier asks "I never got a response to my invoice":

• Supplier has Auto-reply disabled set. On the supplier record there's a flag that suppresses all automatic replies for that supplier. Teams use this for suppliers who've complained about automated emails, or where there's an active dispute and manual communication is preferred. Invoice automation still runs normally — only the reply is suppressed. The task gets status Failed — auto-reply disabled or a similar "silent" variant.
• Account doesn't have invoice automation enabled. If the feature is turned off for your account, no automated processing happens at all — invoices come in and sit as normal tasks for manual handling.
• Supplier has no email address on record. Navigator can't send a reply if there's nowhere to send it. The automation status reflects this with Failed — no supplier email.
• The inbound email doesn't match the supplier's email. For the acknowledgement to send, the email address the invoice came from has to match the address stored on the supplier record. If they don't match (a supplier is emailing from a personal address, or someone is forwarding invoices on their behalf), the acknowledgement is skipped to avoid sending confirmations to the wrong place. Your team still sees the invoice normally.
• Multiple supplier records share the same ABN and email. Navigator won't send an acknowledgement when it can't be sure which supplier the reply should be attributed to.
• Supplier is ABN-exempt. Some providers operate under an ABN exemption; Navigator suppresses the reply and silently marks the invoice as passed so your team can handle it manually.
• Travel-related invoices in specific configurations. Some travel-related automations are set up to pass silently without a reply.

All of these cases show up as a passed_silently, passed_silently_travel, failed_auto_reply_disabled, or failed_no_supplier_email status on the task. See Invoice automation status for the full list.

What this means for your team

Most inbound invoices handle themselves. Clean, compliant invoices from known suppliers flow through: extracted, validated, created, and acknowledged without anyone opening a task.

Failed invoices usually resolve themselves too. The rejection email is specific about what's wrong, so most suppliers fix it and resend. You don't need to chase. You'll see the fix arrive as a new invoice task.

Review-required invoices are where your time goes. These need a judgment call that the automation can't make — confirm the budget allocation, verify a price, check a date range, decide whether a code outside the safe list is correct for this situation. Working through Review required is the main day-to-day task for most team members.

If a supplier disputes a rejection, the rejection email tells them to reply and that reply threads straight onto the original task — you'll see their response against the invoice they're querying.