It reads against your data, not in a vacuum
Every extraction is primed with the business's known suppliers and ABNs, your material categories, and your material catalogue — units, category, and any supplier SKUs you've saved against a material. That grounding is why merchant shorthand resolves to the right item instead of arriving as a mystery line. Save a supplier's code against a material once and that supplier's lines match to it from then on.
Honest edge: the catalogue is passed in up to 250 materials. If you carry more than that, the tail of your list won't be in the prompt, and those lines are the ones most likely to come back for review.
Pack sizes, worked out and explained
This is the part that quietly saves the most time. The AI returns both the quantity as the invoice states it and a converted quantity in your own units — each, metres, square metres, hours, packs, boxes, kilos, litres — with a written explanation of how it got there and a confidence score for the conversion. A box of 100 becomes 100 in your stock. And if it can't work out the pack size, it keeps the quantity as printed, scores the conversion low, says why, and marks the line for review rather than guessing.
A review gate with published thresholds
Every line gets a confidence score and a match reason. If the document scores under 85%, or any single line scores under 75%, the whole bill is held in review required and cannot be applied until a human has been through it. Edit anything on a parsed bill and it goes straight back to review. Manual entries start there too.
Nothing is written until everything validates
When you hit apply, every line is checked against your materials, quantities and costs before a single stock movement is written. One unmatched line and the whole apply is rejected, telling you exactly which lines are the problem — you never get a half-applied bill with three lines in and four missing. An atomic claim on the invoice means two people hitting apply at once can't double it up.
Four kinds of bill, not just materials
- Materials — writes stock transactions into inventory
- Equipment hire — writes a supplier cost with ex-GST, GST and inc-GST derived
- Subcontractor — the sub's invoice gets costed like everything else
- Other costs — the odds and ends that would otherwise never make it onto a job
You choose where it lands: the whole bill against one job, split by PO number so each PO routes to its own job, or into general stock. Credit notes work backwards correctly — quantities and amounts apply as negatives, so a return takes stock back out and reverses the cost.
What it costs you in AI
There's no premium tier to unlock it — bill scanning is included at every seat. Every account gets a monthly AI allowance of 200 calls plus 75 per active seat, resetting on the first. A supplier bill costs three calls, so a sole trader gets around 90 bills a month before anything else kicks in, and each extra seat adds about 25 more. Past the allowance there's a metered top-up at 1.5c a call, capped at $49 a month. Nothing fails silently — you get a clear "limit reached" rather than a surprise bill. Free trials get 60 calls, about 20 bills, with no top-up.
Where your bill goes
The AI runs server-side, so no model key ever reaches your phone or browser. Each person confirms AI processing once, on their first upload. Every request is gated by your permissions on the underlying record and metered before the model is called, so an exhausted allowance costs you nothing. The uploaded PDF is deleted from the AI provider afterwards, every time.
If a scan fails, retry it against the original file, or type the bill in by hand — manual entry runs no AI at all. Once a bill has been read successfully the source file is cleared, so re-reading one means uploading it again.
What this isn't
This is materials-and-cost capture, not accounts payable. There's no "pay the supplier" step, no supplier statement reconciliation, and the bill itself doesn't push to Xero — what flows on is the stock movement and the job cost. If you're comparing against an AP tool, that's the line.
Frequently asked questions
How does supplier-invoice scanning work?
You upload the supplier's bill as a PDF and the built-in AI reads it against your own data — your suppliers, your categories and your material catalogue — extracts the line items, matches them to your materials, converts pack quantities into your units, and flags anything it isn't confident about. You review, then apply it to your stock or cost it to a job.
Can I photograph a supplier invoice instead?
Not yet — uploads must be PDFs. Most merchant statements arrive as a PDF by email, and a scan or an export from your accountant works too. Photo capture is on the roadmap.
What happens if it reads something wrong?
It's designed to hand back rather than guess. If the document scores under 85% confidence, or any single line under 75%, the whole bill is held for review and can't be applied until a person has checked it. On apply, every line is validated before anything is written — one unmatched line rejects the whole apply and tells you which lines to fix.
Does it handle pack sizes?
Yes. It converts the invoice's quantity into your own units and explains how, with a confidence score for the conversion. If the pack size isn't clear, it keeps the quantity as printed and marks the line for review instead of guessing.
Is it included, or an extra?
Included at every seat — there's no premium tier. Every account gets 200 AI calls a month plus 75 per active seat; a bill costs three calls. Past that there's a metered top-up at 1.5c a call, capped at $49 a month, and you're told when you hit the limit rather than billed by surprise.
What happens to my supplier invoice after it's read?
The AI runs server-side and the uploaded PDF is deleted from the AI provider after processing, every time. Once a bill has been read successfully the source file is cleared here too.
Does it pay the supplier or push the bill to Xero?
No. This is materials-and-cost capture, not accounts payable — there's no payment step, no statement reconciliation, and the bill doesn't push to Xero. What flows on is the stock movement and the job cost.
→ See it on sample data in the live demo — no sign-up. Or read about materials and inventory.