How to read handwritten invoices into Excel

Hand-written invoices from markets, hardware shops and small suppliers are the slowest ones to enter: the writing is hard to read, the date is in a corner, and the total is sometimes just a number under the last line. Invoice Extractor reads these too, in Khmer and English.

How to photograph a handwritten invoice

• Lay it flat and take the photo from straight above.
• Use daylight or a bright lamp, with no shadow of your hand or phone on the page.
• Keep the whole page in the picture, including the shop's name at the top and any stamp or date at the bottom.
• One invoice per photo. A scanning app such as CamScanner works well, and several pages in one PDF are fine.

Steps

1. Upload the photos or the scanned PDF and choose Expense or Sale.
2. Each invoice becomes a row. For handwriting, the system reads twice when it is not sure.
3. Look at the rows marked "Needs a check". Compare them with the paper: the date, the quantity times the price, and the total.
4. Fix any cell by clicking it, then tick the row.
5. Export to Excel.

What to expect

• Clear handwriting is usually read correctly. Very faint carbon copies and crossed-out numbers are the ones that need your eye.
• A shop with no printed name is listed by what is printed: its line of business and phone number.
• Khmer descriptions are kept as written, with an English version beside them when you want it.

Why checking still matters

A handwritten 1 and 7, or 3 and 8, can look alike to any reader. The check marks and warnings are there so that a doubtful number is seen by you before it reaches your books.