Accounts payable OCR: reading invoices automatically

Accounts payable OCR reads the data from each invoice, such as the vendor, invoice number, date, PO number and total, so your AP team checks it instead of typing it. The right solution depends on how many invoices you receive, how many vendors send them, and whether you need every line item or just the header fields.

Three levels of invoice OCR

• Header fields from known vendors. SimpleInvoice, a preconfigured add-on for SimpleIndex, reads the vendor, invoice number, date and total using templates and matching against your vendor list, so there's no machine-learning model to train. It's the lowest-cost route for small and mid-sized AP departments. See invoice OCR in SimpleIndex.
• Invoices from many vendors, with tables. SimpleIndex Professional can use cloud engines such as Amazon Textract to read key-value pairs and tables from layouts it hasn't seen before.
• High volumes with line items and validation. ABBYY FlexiCapture for Invoices, also available in the cloud, extracts header and line-item data from invoices from any vendor, matches them against POs and vendor records, and sends exceptions to a person to verify. We resell, implement and support it.

Getting the data into your accounting system

Extracted invoice data is only useful once it's in your system. SimpleIndex posts bills to QuickBooks Desktop and QuickBooks Online through SimpleWorkflow, and works with other accounting systems through exports and RPA bots; see QuickBooks invoice scanning and AP automation software. FlexiCapture exports to ERP systems.

Send us a sample of your invoices and your monthly volume, and we'll recommend the right setup. For scanning, filing and approving invoices, see accounts payable imaging.