autom8ic.
02 Case study Invoice extraction

The data entry job
nobody misses.

Receipts, invoices, expense slips — into a workflow at one end, into your accounting system as structured data at the other. No OCR setup, no template configuration, no per-vendor rules. The model reads the image like a human does.

Production · live Vision-based extraction ~£0.04 per invoice 3-5 seconds end-to-end
01 · INPUT → OUTPUT

Image in. Structured data out.

The workflow takes a photo or scan of a receipt and returns clean structured JSON that drops directly into Google Sheets, Xero, QuickBooks, or any system that takes named fields. Below: a real test run on a Zara receipt.

Input · uploaded image
ZARA
REGENT STREET · LONDON W1B 5AH
Knitted jumper£39.99
Wool trousers£49.99
Cotton t-shirt£15.99
Subtotal£105.97
VAT (20%)£17.66
TOTAL£105.97
14 MAR 2026 · 14:23
INV #ZR-2026-09847
CARD PAYMENT · VISA ****4521
Output · structured JSON
{ "vendor": "Zara", "date": "2026-03-14", "invoice_number": "ZR-2026-09847", "total": 105.97, "currency": "GBP", "category": "clothing", "line_items": [ { "item": "Knitted jumper", "price": 39.99 }, { "item": "Wool trousers", "price": 49.99 }, { "item": "Cotton t-shirt", "price": 15.99 } ], "extracted_at": "2026-03-14T17:42:08Z" }
02 · THE ROI MATH

Replaces a job, not a tool.

Most "invoice OCR" pitches sell you a £200 tool. This isn't a tool — it's the workflow that removes a person from a job they hate doing. The cost arithmetic is brutal:

A finance ops team processing 200 invoices/month
Bookkeeper time per invoice~5 minutes
Hourly rate (UK average)£15/hr
Monthly cost · manual£250
Workflow cost per invoice£0.04
Monthly cost · automated£8
Net saving per month£242

Payback period: less than one month at typical client setup fees. After that, every invoice processed is pure margin — and the team gets their afternoons back.

03 · THREE WAYS TO SHAPE IT

Pick the one that matches your reality.

Same engine, three different deployment shapes — depending on whether you're running your own books, managing a small finance team, or operating a full accounts-payable function. Each tier builds on the last; you can always start small and grow into the next one.

Tier 01 · Starter
The Sheets Logger
For: solo founders & small businesses
Drop a receipt in, get a row in your spreadsheet. No accounting integration, no team workflows — just the cleanest possible path from image to data.
Includes
  • Vision-based extraction
  • Google Sheets append
  • Web upload form
  • Email or Slack confirmations
Tier 02 · Integrated
The Bookkeeping Pipeline
For: SMBs & accounting firms
Receipts flow into Xero, QuickBooks, FreeAgent, or your accounting tool of choice — categorised, dated, ready to reconcile. Cuts your bookkeeper's data-entry hours to near zero.
Everything in Starter, plus
  • Xero / QuickBooks / FreeAgent sync
  • Smart category mapping
  • Duplicate detection
  • Multi-currency handling
Tier 03 · Full AP
The Accounts-Payable Engine
For: finance teams at scale
The full operating layer: invoices arrive via email or upload, get routed by vendor, run through approval flows, schedule payment, and flag exceptions. Replaces an AP clerk's full week.
Everything in Integrated, plus
  • Inbox monitoring & auto-ingestion
  • Multi-step approval workflows
  • Payment scheduling
  • Exception routing & alerts
04 · HOW IT WORKS

One file in. One row in your spreadsheet.

No template configuration, no vendor-specific rules, no OCR engine to maintain. Claude's vision model reads the image directly — handles handwritten receipts, faded thermal paper, foreign-language invoices, and weird layouts that break traditional OCR.

  [ File upload form ]
         
  Claude vision ──→ reads image, returns structured JSON
         
  JSON cleanup     ──→ strips markdown fences, adds timestamp
         
  Google Sheets    ──→ append row · 8 columns
         
  Confirmation     ──→ shows extracted data to uploader
01
No OCR setup
Multimodal vision reads the image directly. Better accuracy on weird receipt layouts than Tesseract or vendor-specific OCR engines.
02
Drops into your stack
Output is structured JSON with consistent named fields — ready to append to Google Sheets, Xero, QuickBooks, or any accounting system that takes columns.
03
Tested across vendor types
Validated on receipts from multiple retailers with different layouts. First-try accuracy on all of them — not curated examples, real-world tests.
05 · UNDER THE HOOD

The stack, plainly stated.

Orchestration
n8n, self-hosted on Hetzner
Vision model
Claude Sonnet 4.5 multimodal
Intake
n8n Form Trigger · file upload
Destination
Google Sheets (or Xero, QuickBooks)
Cost per invoice
~£0.02-£0.04
Your data
Stays on your infrastructure. Always.
06 · GET IN TOUCH

Not sure which tier
fits your team?

Drop me a line with rough numbers — how many invoices a month, what accounting tool you run, where the friction sits — and I'll tell you honestly which tier makes sense and what it'd take to build.

hello@autom8ic.com →