Stop Manual Data Entry. Automate Accounting with Custom AI.
AI automates accounting data entry by using OCR to read invoices and the Claude API to extract structured data. It automates reconciliations by matching this extracted invoice data against bank transaction records in your ERP.
The system's complexity depends on your document sources. A business processing PDF invoices from 15 consistent vendors is a direct build. A company managing scanned receipts, multi-page purchase orders, and 100+ vendor formats requires a more advanced parsing and validation engine.
We built a document processing pipeline for a 7-person property management firm that was handling 500 vendor invoices per month. Manual entry took them 6 minutes per invoice. The system we deployed now processes each document in 8 seconds with higher accuracy and was live in a 3-week build cycle.
What Problem Does This Solve?
Most small businesses start by using the built-in rules engine in their accounting software, like QuickBooks Online. These rules work for simple categorizations, like flagging every transaction from 'Chevron' as 'Fuel'. But they cannot handle line-item splits. An invoice from a supplier with materials for three different client jobs still requires manual entry to allocate costs correctly.
This leads teams to dedicated document capture tools like Dext or Hubdoc. These are effective for basic receipt scanning but fail on complex documents. They cannot reliably parse multi-page invoices, match line items to purchase orders, or extract the custom fields required by an industry-specific ERP. This forces your bookkeeper to correct the data, defeating the purpose of the tool. Their per-document pricing also penalizes businesses with high transaction volumes.
For a construction firm processing 300 multi-line invoices a month, this is a real bottleneck. The bookkeeper spends 25 hours a month manually splitting transactions in QBO for job costing. The existing tools can't automate this critical workflow, creating delays for month-end closing and inaccurate project profitability reports.
How Does It Work?
We begin by collecting 100-200 sample invoices covering your top 20 vendors. We use a Python script with the Tesseract OCR engine to digitize the documents and then engineer a series of prompts for the Claude 3 Sonnet API. This extracts not just header-level data but also specific line items, SKU numbers, and job codes with over 95% accuracy.
The core of the system is a FastAPI service that orchestrates the workflow. When a new PDF is uploaded to a designated folder, an AWS Lambda function triggers the process. It calls our OCR and Claude API pipeline to get structured JSON data. This data is then validated against business rules, such as matching line items to open purchase orders stored in a Supabase Postgres database. The entire pipeline has an average processing time of 12 seconds per document.
The FastAPI service connects to your accounting system's API, whether it is NetSuite, Acumatica, or a custom-built ERP. It creates a new bill with all line items correctly coded and attached to the right customer job, reducing a 6-minute manual task to a fully automated background process. We containerize the service and deploy it within your own AWS account, so your financial data never leaves your control. Hosting costs are typically under $50 per month.
For quality control, we build a simple exception handling queue. If the Claude API returns a confidence score below a 90% threshold for any field, the document is flagged for a one-click human review. This keeps the end-to-end error rate below 1%. We use structlog for structured logging, providing a complete, auditable trail for every invoice that passes through the system.
What Are the Key Benefits?
Process an Invoice in 8 Seconds, Not 6 Minutes
Reduce manual data entry time by over 98%. Your accounting team can focus on analysis and financial controls instead of tedious clerical work.
Pay Once for the Build, Not Per Invoice
A single fixed-price engagement for a system you own. Avoids the recurring per-document fees of SaaS tools that penalize growth.
You Get the Full Source Code in Your GitHub
We deliver the complete Python codebase to your company's GitHub repository. You have zero vendor lock-in and can extend the system internally.
Errors Are Flagged Before They Hit Your Books
Automatic confidence scoring sends any low-certainty extractions to a simple queue for human review, preventing incorrect data from entering your ERP.
Connects Directly to Your ERP and S3 Storage
We build direct API integrations to your existing accounting software and cloud storage. No new platforms for your team to learn or manage.
What Does the Process Look Like?
Scope & Sample Review (Week 1)
You provide 100 sample invoices and read-only access to your chart of accounts. We deliver a proof-of-concept parser and confirm the exact data fields for extraction.
Core System Build (Week 2)
We build the FastAPI service, the OCR pipeline on AWS Lambda, and the Claude API integration. You receive a link to a staging environment to test processing.
ERP Integration & Deployment (Week 3)
We connect the service to your live accounting system's API and deploy it to your cloud. You receive the full source code in your private GitHub repository.
Monitoring & Handoff (Weeks 4-6)
We monitor the live system, fine-tuning extraction prompts for any edge cases. You receive a runbook detailing the system architecture and exception handling process.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How much does a custom accounting automation system cost?
- Pricing is a fixed, one-time fee based on project scope. The key factors are the number of unique invoice formats to support, the complexity of your line-item business rules (like job costing), and which ERP system we need to integrate with. A project with 10 consistent vendor formats and a standard QuickBooks API integration is simpler than one with 100 varied formats and a custom ERP.
- What happens when the AI misreads an invoice?
- The system is designed for this. Each extracted field gets a confidence score. If any score is below our 90% threshold, the invoice is routed to a simple web interface for human review. Your bookkeeper gets a Slack notification, reviews the flagged field, corrects it if needed, and approves it with one click. This prevents bad data from ever entering your accounting system.
- How is this different from using a tool like Dext or Bill.com?
- Those tools are general-purpose and charge per document. We build custom logic for your specific workflow, such as splitting invoice line items across multiple client jobs, which off-the-shelf tools cannot do. Because you own the system we build, there are no recurring per-invoice fees, making it more cost-effective for businesses processing over 200 documents per month.
- How do you handle my sensitive financial data?
- We deploy the entire system inside your own AWS cloud account. Your documents and financial data never leave your infrastructure or pass through our servers. We use the Claude API for processing, which does not train on API data as per their business privacy policy. You maintain full control and ownership of your data at all times.
- How accurate is the data extraction?
- For typed PDF invoices from consistent vendors, we typically achieve over 99% field-level accuracy. For lower-quality scans or highly variable formats, accuracy is generally 95-98%. We establish a clear accuracy baseline using your sample documents during the first week of the project, so you know exactly what to expect before we build.
- What kind of support is available after the project ends?
- The initial build includes a two-week post-launch monitoring and support period. After that, we offer an optional flat monthly maintenance plan which covers bug fixes, dependency updates, and prompt adjustments for new invoice formats. You also have the full source code and runbook, allowing any Python developer on your team to manage the system.
Related Solutions
Ready to Automate Your Small Business Operations?
Book a call to discuss how we can implement ai automation for your small business business.
Book a Call