OCR for bookkeepers and accounting firms: where it helps, where to check

An accounting practice receives client documents in every possible form: PDFs by email, photos in chats, a bag of receipts at the end of the quarter. Automatic reading can save most of the typing. It cannot save the responsibility. The question is how to fit it in so the practice works faster without a single mistake reaching a report.

Where the time goes

Before deciding what to change, find out where the time goes today. In most practices it splits across five stages:

1. Intake and sorting: collecting from every channel, working out what arrived and whose it is.
2. Typing: supplier, date, amounts, VAT and document number.
3. Coding: which account, and whether the VAT is deductible.
4. Checking: reconciling with the bank, the ledger and last month.
5. Chasing: asking the client for what is missing.

Automatic reading mainly affects the second stage, and a little of the first. For stages 3 to 5 it provides tidier data, but people do the work. The measurement guide has a method for timing each stage in your own practice.

A recommended workflow

1. Intake: every document is read on the day it arrives, not at the end of the month.
2. Reading: document type, fields and tables come out automatically.
3. Focused review: go over the values marked for review first. Clicking a field shows where it is on the page.
4. Controls: automatic checks in the sheet, see below.
5. Import: only checked data goes into the accounting software.

Controls that catch mistakes

A reading mistake and a supplier's mistake look the same in a report. Simple controls catch both:

• Amount before VAT plus VAT equals the total.
• VAT at 18% on ordinary Israeli transactions, with every exception checked.
• An allocation number is present on invoices above the set amount. Without it, the client cannot deduct the VAT.
• No duplicates: the same supplier and the same invoice number twice.
• The date falls in the right period.

The formulas for these checks are in the invoice processing guide.

What stays with the practice

• Judgement: coding to accounts, mixed-use expenses, VAT that cannot be deducted.
• Exceptions: credit notes, documents in foreign currency, documents missing a detail.
• Responsibility to the client and to the tax authority. The tool does not sign the return.

Client privacy

Client documents are full of personal data: names, ID numbers, bank accounts and salaries. Before uploading them to any service, ask what it keeps, where and for how long. In OCR-AI the file, the image and the text are not stored on the server. Results are kept in the browser you worked in, so on a shared office computer, delete the history when you finish. All the details are on the security page, and general questions to ask any provider are in the article on privacy.

Cost

You pay per page, in one-time packs with no subscription, and a page whose reading failed is not counted. Prices are listed here. For large volumes, write to us.