Processing invoices accurately and efficiently is crucial to any organization’s financial health.

But invoices aren’t always perfect; due to issues in invoices, it causes delays in invoice processing and releasing payments. One such issue is the presence of irrelevant pages within invoice documents.

Approximately 10-20% of invoices may contain irrelevant pages, such as blank pages at the end, or other unrelated documentation like company information. While this seems like a small problem, handling hundreds or thousands of monthly invoices with blank pages in the middle or end quickly takes a toll on large organizations.


What is the issue with processing invoices with irrelevant pages?

The presence of irrelevant pages in invoices poses several challenges while improving the efficiency of invoicing processes, especially in manual invoicing processing.

Increased processing time: Sorting through irrelevant pages adds to the time it takes to process invoices. Also, suppose there is a blank page in the documents. In that case, OCR software might process more pages or include irrelevant information present on the page in the final document leading to unnecessary delays in invoice processing and payment.

Higher risk of errors: With irrelevant pages mixed in, the chances of overlooking a crucial data point or missing a data entry increase. In case if your invoice management software fails to identify document type by page, you might miss data entry for that page altogether, which can result in payment discrepancies, disputes, and even compliance issues.

Difficulty in document management: Storing and organizing invoices becomes more cumbersome when they contain irrelevant pages.

Inefficiencies in automation: Using automated invoice processing software to extract data from invoices with irrelevant pages might reduce the efficiency of the invoice process in case the software can’t identify documents without a template. This may require manual intervention to ensure accuracy.

Two ways to solve this issue are:

  1. Split the invoice document to remove the irrelevant pages manually
  2. Use an AI-based invoice processing software that accommodates this issue.

We will see how to handle it both ways.


How to split the invoice document to remove the irrelevant pages manually?

Nanonets’ split PDF page can help you remove irrelevant pages from invoices instantly without email or registering.

  1. Go to the split PDF tool page.
  2. Upload the invoice document, select the pages you want to retain and select “Download PDF”
  3. Your file is automatically downloaded.

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The Split PDF tool is best for one-time use. In case you want to automate splitting PDF before processing documents, try the Nanonets platform. 


Use an AI-based invoice processing software

Nanonets is an AI-based invoice processing software that isn’t template based. What it means is the platform uses AI, ML, and NLP to identify the fields automatically from your document, no matter where they are. With that, let’s try to solve our problem at hand here, how to remove irrelevant pages from invoice before processing them. There are two ways to solve this problem with Nanonets:

If you have invoices in a specific format and you know the positions of irrelevant pages to the T, you can use a very simple setting. In the Nanonets platform, you can select the pages you want to extract data from.

So, if you have a 10-page document and an irrelevant page at 5, 7, and 9th position, simply input the data as 1-4, 6, 8, 10 into this block, and the platform will process only these pages.

If this is not the case, and you don’t know which pages are irrelevant, Nanonets offers a simple solution:

Every incoming document will go through a document classifier model. The document classifier model identifies the type of document type for every page. If the category of a page is invoice, then only that page will be sent to the invoice OCR model, where data will be extracted from this page.


Nanonets for automated invoice processing

Nanonets combines machine learning and OCR technology to automate and streamline invoice processing.

With Nanonets’ invoice OCR, you can convert unstructured invoice data in various formats, such as paper, PDF, or scanned images, into structured and actionable data. The platform can automatically recognize, extract, and classify relevant information from your invoices, reducing manual data entry and accelerating the processing time by 90%!

Nanonets’ invoice processing software takes it further, offering advanced features such as

  • Auto-validation
  • Line item extraction and multi-currency support.
  • Seamless integration with popular accounting software and ERP systems
  • Approval automation
  • Complete transparency in invoice processing
  • Global payments platform to simplify payment processing
  • 2,3 and 4-way matching
  • Easy to UI
  • 24×7 Support
  • Free migration assistance

See how our users love using Nanonets:


Conclusion

Irrelevant pages in invoice documents can cause delays, increase errors, and hinder automation efforts, affecting the overall efficiency of the invoicing process. By using Nanonets’ Split PDF Page for one-time manual adjustments or adopting the powerful AI-based invoice processing software, businesses can overcome these challenges and streamline their invoice processes.

10,000+ users trust nanonets to automate invoices, receipts, bills, and other document processes. Get on a short 20 minute call to see how we can solve your current invoice processing issues & save 80% costs!  

Source: https://nanonets.com/blog/how-to-remove-irrelevant-pages-from-invoices/