Sebastian de GoeijShort answer
OCR turns an invoice into text, templates tell the software where each field sits, and AI invoice recognition understands the invoice without templates and uses the administration's context to propose the booking too. For firms with many suppliers and administrations AI is the only approach that scales without constant maintenance.
Key takeaways
- OCR is a building block: it produces text, not a booking.
- Templates work for fixed layouts but break on every change.
- AI recognises without templates and proposes GL account and VAT code.
- A confidence score per booking is needed to steer automation.
How does OCR work on invoices?
OCR recognises characters in an image or scanned PDF and converts them to text. It does not know what an amount or invoice number is.
What do templates do?
Templates record per supplier where each field is. Every new supplier needs one, and a layout change breaks it.
How does AI invoice recognition work?
AI reads meaning and context instead of positions, so new suppliers and layouts need no setup. Autoboeker also proposes GL account, VAT code, cost centre and contact from history, with a confidence score.
OCR, templates and AI side by side
The difference is maintenance and what happens after extraction.
| OCR | Templates | AI recognition | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Output | Text | Filled fields | Booking proposal with confidence score |
| New supplier | No difference | New template needed | Recognised directly |
| Changed layout | No difference | Template breaks | No effect |
| Coding | No | Fixed rules | From history, rules and instructions |
| Maintenance | None | Per supplier | Only rules you choose |
FAQ
Questions about this topic.
No. OCR turns an image into text; recognition decides which text is the amount, date or supplier.
They assume fixed positions; when the layout changes the position is wrong.
Look at the confidence score and explanation per booking and test hard invoices in a trial.
How Autoboeker solves it
