What can be read automatically
- Supplier invoices and bills: supplier, number, dates, line items, tax and totals
- Purchase orders and order forms, including emailed ones
- Application, intake and onboarding forms, typed or scanned
- Bank and card statements, delivery notes and timesheets
- Contracts, where you need a few key terms rather than every word
Three ways to do it
Documents that always use the same layout can be read with simple templates. Documents from many senders in many layouts need a reader that understands the page, not just positions on it. Handwriting and poor scans need image clean-up first and a person checking more often.
Most real setups combine them: templates for the regular senders, a general reader for the rest, and a review screen for anything below a confidence level you choose.
Where a person should check
Set rules for when a document goes to review: totals that do not add up, a new supplier, a value outside the normal range, or a field the reader is unsure about. Reviewers see the document and the extracted fields side by side, correct what is wrong, and approve. Everything else goes straight through.
Where the data goes
Extraction is only half the job. Decide where each document ends up, such as QuickBooks or Xero, your CRM, a job system or a spreadsheet, and match it to the right customer, supplier or job on the way. See QuickBooks automation for the accounting side.
How to start
Pick the one document type you receive most often. Collect fifty real examples, including the messy ones. Measure how long they take by hand today, then pilot on those examples before connecting anything live. The process cost calculator helps you size the time saved.
Updated 2026-10-23. General guidance, not advice for your situation; we scope each project in writing before any work starts.
Download the template
An n8n workflow that reads PDF invoices from an inbox, pulls out the key fields, checks the totals, and adds a row to a Google Sheet, flagging anything to review. Free, with setup steps. You add your own accounts and settings.
Questions people ask first
How accurate is it?
It depends on the documents. Clean digital PDFs read very reliably; scans and handwriting less so. That is why the review step matters, and why a pilot on your own documents comes before any promise.
Where do the documents go in?
Wherever they arrive today: a shared inbox, a folder in Google Drive, Dropbox or SharePoint, or an upload page.
Is our data kept private?
It is processed in accounts and services agreed with you in writing, and documents are kept only as long as you choose.
Can it handle documents in other languages?
Usually, yes. Test examples in each language during the pilot.
Tell us what you need built.
Tell us the process and the tools involved, or call. We reply with questions or a written scope.
hello@pushbuild.com