When handling bills, financial professionals have long struggled with manual data entry when dealing with invoices. From entering line items to double-checking accuracy, the process can be tedious and time-consuming. Invoice parsers are here to save the day! They help to automate the financial process by extracting, processing, and interpreting data from invoices. Let's take a closer look at how invoice parsers work and why they are so beneficial when it comes to automated invoice processing.
How Does Invoice Parsing Work?
An invoice parser is a type of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software technology that works by leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms that can extract information from any type of invoice document. This includes emails, PDFs, scans, or images of invoices from any vendor or country. The AI algorithm quickly extracts all relevant information from the document such as item name, quantity, unit price, total amount due, payment terms, currency type, etc., which is then stored in a secure cloud-based repository for easy access.
The Benefits of an Invoice Parser
Invoice parser technology eliminates manual data entry and helps streamline business processes by automating the entire financial process from invoice receipt to payment processing. Automation also reduces human errors and leads to higher accuracy levels in accounting processes like reconciliation or budgeting. By quickly extracting data from documents like bills or invoices with just one click of a button, finance teams can focus on more strategic tasks like analysis or decision-making instead of wasting time manually entering numbers into spreadsheets or databases. Additionally, since this technology leverages AI algorithms that are constantly learning and improving over time, it can provide real-time insights into spending patterns or trends that may help optimize financial operations across the organization.
In short, an invoice parser is a powerful tool that helps eliminate manual data entry while streamlining financial processes across an organization. With its efficient extraction capabilities and AI algorithms that learn over time, it provides real-time insights into spending patterns which can help CFOs make more informed decisions about their budgeting strategies for maximum efficiency. All in all, an invoice parser is a great asset for any finance team looking to increase their productivity levels without sacrificing accuracy!
Key Things to Expect from An Invoice Parser
Here's a quick summary of what a state-of-the-art invoice parser needs to accomplish as the first step in an automated invoice processing workflow:
- Extract all relevant information from different fields on an invoice
- Deals with multiple types of input formats including pdf files, emails, text, and more (also known as multi-channel capture)
- Able to handle poor-quality customer invoices that might have information or language that’s hard to read or even partially missing
- Correctly identifies key-value pairs
- Saves those pairs in a key-value store or database for further analysis
- Correctly reads line items in context.
Why Smart Data Extraction Helps Keep Costs in Check
As inflationary pressures are rising, most companies are looking for ways to streamline their operations, become more efficient and slash costs. The Accounts Payable function is ripe for digital transformation, starting with an intelligent approach to analyze invoices. The goal is to be capable of handling any new document that comes in and quickly make sense of the data it contains.
Extracting the correct data points from each and every invoice form is the first and crucial step to a leaner workflow and to keep rising costs in check. You could say that accuracy, processing speed, and cost per invoice are the ultimate key-value pairs to keep an eye on.
So, if your organization wants to strengthen its cash flow management and build more robust supplier relationships, if it wants to get a better handle on cost analysis, improve financial forecasting and scenario planning, it’s a good move to consider the invoice parser.
