What this tool does
Upload one invoice or receipt: the PDF a supplier emailed, a scan, or phone photos of the pages. You get back the fields a bookkeeper types in by hand: who issued it, its number, the date and due date, the currency, the subtotal, any discount or shipping, the tax, the total, and what has been paid and what is still due.
Every field is shown next to what was printed, so you can check it against the page. Anything the page leaves in doubt is marked, and you can fix it right there. The download is one header row and one row of values, so each new invoice lines up under the last one in your own sheet.
What gets checked
The reader copies what is printed and never does arithmetic. The sums are done afterwards, in whole cents, and every doubt it finds is marked on the field it belongs to.
- The total adds up. Subtotal, less any discount, plus shipping or other charges, plus tax, plus any tip, should equal the total. Receipts often print prices with tax already included, so a total that equals the subtotal also passes.
- Paid and due agree. When the total, the amount paid and the amount due are all printed, total less paid must equal due. When they differ, there is usually an earlier payment or credit, and you are told to look.
- Dates make sense. A due date before the invoice date is marked, and so is a date far in the future, which usually means a misread year.
A passing check means the numbers agree with each other. It cannot catch a misread number that happens to fit, so look at the total before you rely on it.
Paid is not the same as due
Most invoice readers fill in "amount due" with the total, which is wrong the moment a deposit has been paid. Here the two stay separate. The amount paid is only filled in when the document says something was paid, such as "Paid", "Payment received" or a card line on a receipt. The amount due is only filled in when the document says what is still owed. Neither is ever copied from the total.
On a cash receipt, the cash handed over is not what was paid. If the receipt shows £50.00 cash and £7.50 change, the amount paid is £42.50, and the Checks sheet shows how it was worked out.
What gets marked for you to check
- Dates that could go either way. 03/04/2026 is 3 April in London and March 4 in New York. Unless another date on the same document settles it, such as a due date of 18/04/2026, the date is marked with both readings. One click confirms it.
- Currency symbols shared by several currencies. A $ could be US, Canadian, Australian or several others. The reader uses the address to decide, and marks the guess.
- Amounts where the separator is unclear. Is 1.234 a thousand or one and a bit? When nothing else on the document settles it, the amount is read as a thousand and marked.
- Anything the reader could not see clearly, such as a smudged digit, a fold or faded thermal print.
What is in the spreadsheet
The Excel workbook has two sheets. Invoice is the header row and one row of values: type, vendor, number, date, due date, currency, subtotal, discount, shipping, tax, tip, total, amount paid, amount due, what still needs checking, and the source file. Amounts are real numbers and dates are real Excel dates, so they sum and sort without retyping. Checks lists every field with what was printed, what it was read as, and any note.
The CSV is the same row with a header. Or skip the download: "Copy row" puts the values on your clipboard, ready to paste under last month's invoices.
What it does not do yet
Line items are not extracted: this tool reads the totals, not every product on the invoice. For a table of items, use Image to Excel. It reads one invoice at a time. A PDF with ten invoices in it, or a folder of receipts, needs one upload each for now. Documents over 6 pages are refused, because anything that long is usually a statement or a contract.
Privacy
Invoices carry names, addresses and bank details. Your file is deleted as soon as it has been read, and only the fields shown on the page are kept. They are kept for a day unless you choose 30 days, and you can delete them yourself at any time. Nothing is used to train a model. The reader is told that the document is data, so text printed on an invoice cannot give it instructions.
Example result
HARBOUR STREET STUDIO Invoice no. HS-2291 Date: 03/04/2026 Due: 18/04/2026 Design work, March £1,250.00 VAT 20% £250.00 Total £1,500.00 Deposit received -£500.00 Balance due £1,000.00
Vendor Harbour Street Studio Number HS-2291 Date 2026-04-03 (the due date settles day-first) Due date 2026-04-18 Currency GBP Subtotal 1250.00 Tax 250.00 Total 1500.00 ✓ 1,250.00 + 250.00 Amount paid 500.00 Amount due 1000.00 ✓ 1,500.00 − 500.00
The deposit stays in Amount paid and the balance in Amount due. Neither is copied from the total.
How this compares
Where another tool is the better choice, it says so.
Nanonets and Docparser
BETTER THEREBuilt for accounts-payable teams: line items, batches, email inboxes and integrations with accounting software, on a monthly plan.
BETTER HERENo account or subscription for a handful of invoices. The totals are checked, and doubtful fields are marked instead of passed through silently.
Receipt apps (Dext, Expensify)
BETTER THERECapture on your phone, categorise and push straight into Xero or QuickBooks. The right choice if you process receipts every week.
BETTER HERENothing to install, and the result is a plain spreadsheet row you own. Paid and due stay separate, and a guessed date or currency is marked for you to check.
Typing it in by hand
BETTER THEREFree, and you read every number yourself.
BETTER HEREQuicker, and the sums are checked for you. A transposed digit in the total shows up as a mismatch instead of reaching your books.
Your questions, answered.
- Can it read a photo of a paper receipt?
- Yes. Take the photo flat and square-on, in good light, with the totals in the frame. A long receipt can go in as two overlapping photos of the same document. Faded thermal paper is the one thing that often cannot be recovered.
- Does it extract line items?
- Not yet. It reads the document's totals: subtotal, discount, shipping, tax, tip, total, paid and due. For a table of items, Image to Excel turns any printed table into a spreadsheet.
- Can I upload a batch of invoices?
- One invoice per upload for now. The download is a single row with a header, so pasting each new row under the last one builds your list.
- Why is the date marked when it looks right?
- Because 03/04/2026 means different days in different countries, and nothing on the page said which. If the reading is right, click “Looks right”. If not, pick the correct date and the mark goes away.
- What happens if the total does not add up?
- The total is marked, with the sum written out so you can see which number to look at. It is usually a charge or discount printed somewhere unusual, or one misread digit. Fix the field and the check runs again.
- Which currencies and number formats work?
- Any. Amounts like 1,234.56, 1.234,56 and 1 234,56 are read using the document's own decimal mark, and currencies without cents, such as the yen, are handled. The currency is stored as a three-letter code.
- What does it cost?
- 3 pages a day are free, and most invoices and receipts are one page. After that it is 2 credits a page, and the price is shown before anything is read. The Excel download is 2 credits and CSV is 1, and copying the row is always free.
- Is my invoice stored?
- The file is deleted as soon as it has been read. The fields are kept for a day so you can check and download them, or 30 days if you choose. You can delete them at any time.