Connect Outlook or Microsoft 365

Gennai works with personal Microsoft accounts (Outlook.com, Hotmail and Live) and with work or school accounts on Microsoft 365. Once your inbox is connected, Gennai checks it for new invoices on its own. Each invoice it finds appears on your Invoices page with the supplier, the dates, the amounts and every line of the invoice.

Connect your inbox

1. In Gennai, open Inboxes.
2. Click Connect inbox and choose Outlook. If you have no inboxes yet, click the Outlook card.
3. Sign in with the Microsoft account that receives your supplier invoices.
4. If Microsoft shows what Gennai is asking for, review it and accept.
5. You are back in Gennai and see the message "Outlook connected". The inbox now appears in Inboxes.

From then on, Gennai checks the inbox for new invoices automatically. You don't need to keep Gennai open.

What Gennai reads

• Invoices, receipts and credit notes attached to your emails as PDF files.
• Invoices written in the body of the email.
• Every folder, including Junk Email and Archive, except Sent Items, Drafts and Deleted Items.
• Only the emails you receive. Emails you send are not read.

Password-protected PDFs and attachments larger than 30 MB can't be read.

What Gennai can and can't do

Gennai can:

• Read your emails to find invoices.
• Keep a copy of each invoice in your Gennai account.

Gennai can't:

• Send, delete or move your emails, or mark them as read.
• Change anything in your mailbox.

Access to your mailbox is read-only and the connection is stored encrypted. Connecting Outlook doesn't give Gennai access to your OneDrive. Keeping a copy of your invoices in OneDrive is a separate option, in Integrations › OneDrive.

To disconnect the inbox, open Inboxes, open the menu (⋮) next to it, click Disconnect and confirm. Gennai stops reading it and deletes the connection. The invoices already in Gennai stay where they are. If this is the account where Gennai copies your invoices to OneDrive, new invoices stop being copied there.

Shared mailboxes in Microsoft 365

A shared mailbox is an address like invoices@yourcompany.com that several people use and that has no password of its own. Gennai can read it if your own Microsoft 365 account has Full Access to it. Your Microsoft 365 admin gives that access.

1. In Gennai, open Inboxes.
2. Click Connect inbox and choose Shared mailbox M365. If you have no inboxes yet, click the Shared mailbox card.
3. Enter the address of the shared mailbox and click Continue.
4. Sign in with your own Microsoft 365 account, the one with Full Access to the shared mailbox, and accept what Microsoft asks for.
5. You are back in Gennai. The shared mailbox now appears in Inboxes, marked SHARED, with the account you signed in with.

Gennai reads a shared mailbox the same way as any other Outlook inbox. A few things to know:

• Each shared mailbox counts as one inbox in your plan.
• You can connect several shared mailboxes.
• Connecting a shared mailbox doesn't connect your own inbox. To capture invoices from both, connect each one.

Inboxes per plan

Gmail, Outlook, shared mailboxes and IMAP inboxes all count towards the same limit. When you reach it, the Connect inbox button is greyed out.

Troubleshooting

Microsoft says I need admin approval

Your organisation's Microsoft 365 admin controls which apps can use work accounts. Ask them to approve Gennai, then connect the inbox again.

The inbox says "Needs reconnection"

Microsoft stopped Gennai's access, for example after a password change or a change made by your admin. Open Inboxes, click Reconnect next to the inbox and sign in with the same Microsoft account. A different account would be added as another inbox, if your plan has room, and the first one would still need reconnecting. Your invoices stay where they are.

Gennai can't read the shared mailbox

Check that you typed the address of the shared mailbox correctly and that your Microsoft 365 account has Full Access to it. If your admin removes that access, the shared mailbox shows "Needs reconnection". Once the access is back, click Reconnect.

An invoice I expected is missing

See An invoice is missing.