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Nika

AI Invoice Processing Example: Before and After

This example follows one supplier invoice from an email attachment to a fully coded accounting record. Manually it takes a bookkeeper about five minutes at roughly €2 in labour per invoice. With Nika the same invoice is read, coded, and filed in under a minute at {price} per processed invoice — the output record is identical, the cost and delay are not.

Before: manual process

A marketing agency receives an email from PrintHub Ltd with invoice INV-4821 attached as a PDF. The office manager opens the email, downloads the PDF, reads the vendor name, invoice date, number, net amount, VAT, and total, switches to the accounting software, types each field into a new supplier invoice record, selects the expense category, saves the record, and moves the PDF into a shared folder. The whole task takes about five minutes. At a bookkeeper rate of €25 per hour, that is roughly €2.08 in labour for a single invoice — before counting the time spent finding the email again when something does not match.

After: with Nika

The same email arrives. Nika detects the attachment, reads vendor (PrintHub Ltd), date (2025-03-14), invoice number (INV-4821), net (€1,030.58), VAT at 21% (€216.92), and total (€1,247.50), codes the expense to Marketing — Print & Design, writes the record into the accounting system, and archives the PDF. The office manager sees the completed record in the approval queue and clicks confirm. Total human time: under thirty seconds. Cost: {price} per processed invoice, charged only when the record is filed.

Workflow

  1. 1

    Detect

    In: Email from PrintHub Ltd — subject "Invoice INV-4821", PDF attachment
    Out: Invoice flagged for processing, PDF extracted from email
    Saved: ~30 seconds vs. manual download and open
  2. 2

    Extract

    In: PDF invoice — vendor, date, number, line items, totals
    Out: Structured fields: vendor=PrintHub Ltd, date=2025-03-14, number=INV-4821, net=€1,030.58, VAT 21%=€216.92, total=€1,247.50
    Saved: ~2 minutes vs. manual reading and typing
  3. 3

    Code

    In: Extracted fields + supplier history
    Out: Category: Marketing — Print & Design, GL account 5500, cost centre: Campaign Q1
    Saved: ~1 minute vs. manual category lookup
  4. 4

    File

    In: Coded record + original PDF
    Out: Record written to accounting system, PDF archived to supplier folder
    Saved: ~1 minute vs. manual save and file

Cost comparison

MethodCostTime
Manual — bookkeeper (€25/hr, 5 min)€2.08 / invoice5 minutes
Manual — admin staff (€15/hr, 4 min)€1.00 / invoice4 minutes
Nika (per processed invoice){price} / invoiceUnder 1 minute

Key takeaways

  • The output record is the same whether a human or Nika files it — vendor, date, number, net, VAT, total, category.
  • The difference is cost and speed: roughly €2 in labour versus {price}, and five minutes versus under a minute.
  • Nika charges only when the invoice is filed, not for invoices she pauses on for human review.

Questions

What does the output record look like?

A structured supplier invoice entry: vendor name, invoice date, invoice number, line items with net and tax amounts, expense category, and a link to the archived PDF. It is the same record a bookkeeper would create — just produced automatically.

What happens if Nika is unsure about a field?

The invoice goes to an approval queue with the fields she read and the reason she paused — a duplicate number, an unusual amount, a missing VAT rate. You confirm or correct, then it is filed. You are not charged for invoices she stops on.

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