Receiving supplier invoices by email is still one of the most common invoice delivery channels, even as structured formats like Peppol gain adoption. An e-invoice inbox is a dedicated email address — separate from your general business mailbox that is purpose-built to receive invoice documents, parse attachments, and route them into your accounts payable system automatically. Without a dedicated inbox, invoices scatter across general inboxes, get missed in busy threads, or arrive too late for timely processing. Setting up a proper e-invoice inbox removes that friction and creates a clean, auditable entry point for every supplier billing document.
What is an E-Invoice Inbox
Un e-invoice inbox is an email address tied directly to your invoicing platform rather than a generic mail client. When a supplier sends an invoice to this address, the platform intercepts the message, identifies invoice attachments, and creates a corresponding record in your accounts payable queue without manual forwarding or copy-pasting.
The inbox typically stores the full email alongside its parsed invoice data: sender address, subject line, timestamp, attachment count and type, invoice detection result, and processing status. This creates a traceable link between the raw email and the invoice record, which is useful for resolving disputes or auditing the source of a particular document. An e-invoice inbox differs from a general email archive in that every message is actively processed, not merely stored.
How Docnova’s Email Inbox Works
Docnova provides a dedicated /email-box section that serves as the facture électronique inbox for your company. Emails received here are displayed in a table with the following columns: SENDER, SUBJECT, RECEIVED AT, CONTENT (body preview), INVOICE DETECTION (whether Docnova automatically identified an invoice in the message), ATTACHMENTS, and STATUS.
The INVOICE DETECTION column is key: Docnova analyses each incoming email to determine whether it contains an invoice attachment or embedded billing data. Detected invoices are then routed to the incoming invoices list for further processing. The STATUS column tracks whether the email has been processed, is pending, or requires attention.
The inbox is inactive until an e-invoice email address is configured in Settings. When no address is set up, the empty state displays a “Click to create an e-invoice email address” prompt linking directly to the configuration page.
Step-by-Step Setup Guide
Step 1 — Navigate to Email Settings. Go to Settings → Email Settings (/email-settings). You will see three tabs: Create Email Address, IMAP, and SMTP.
Step 2 — Create a Docnova-hosted address. On the “Create Email Address” tab, enter the desired local part of your address in the “Enter your email” field. Docnova will generate a @docnova.ai inbox address for your company. This address is managed by Docnova and requires no external mail server configuration.
Step 3 — Or connect an existing mailbox via IMAP. If you prefer to use an existing company email address, switch to the IMAP tab and provide your external mailbox credentials. Docnova will monitor that mailbox and pull invoice emails into the inbox view. Note that IMAP setup requires valid external mail server credentials.
Step 4 — Configure SMTP if needed. The SMTP tab allows you to set up an outbound relay, useful if you need Docnova to send acknowledgements or notifications using your own mail domain.
Step 5 — Verify the inbox. Return to the Email Box page (/email-box). Once an address is configured, the empty state disappears and the inbox table becomes active, ready to receive incoming invoice emails.
Managing Your Invoice Inbox
Once active, the email inbox operates continuously. Incoming emails are parsed in order of receipt. The INVOICE DETECTION column gives an immediate signal on whether automated processing succeeded; emails where no invoice was detected may contain invoices in unsupported formats or may simply be non-invoice correspondence that arrived at the address.
Use the ATTACHMENTS column to identify what file types were received. Docnova supports XML, PDF, PNG, and JPG for invoice parsing attachments in other formats will not produce an invoice record automatically. The STATUS column lets you track which emails have been fully processed and which are still pending review.
For supplier management, share the dedicated inbox address with suppliers as their designated billing contact. This creates a clean channel: only invoice-related emails arrive at that address, and every one is processed without manual triage.
Conclusion
A dedicated e-invoice inbox eliminates the manual effort of monitoring general email for supplier invoices. With Docnova, setup takes minutes either through a hosted Docnova address or by connecting your existing mailbox via IMAP and every incoming invoice email is automatically detected, parsed, and routed into your accounts payable workflow. Once the address is live, update your supplier onboarding template to include it as the standard billing contact, so new vendors route invoices correctly from the first transaction.