🏪 Small business & side hustles
Turn a pile of PDF invoices and receipts into a spreadsheet
Drop in a stack of invoices or receipts and get one tidy table: date, vendor, amount and tax for each, ready for your bookkeeper or a spreadsheet.
Seen on Reddit · Hacker News ×2 · YouTube
What the bot does
- Reads each PDF or photo, even when layouts differ.
- Pulls out the fields you choose, like date, vendor, invoice number, amount and tax.
- Puts everything in one table and flags anything it couldn't read.
- Can run automatically for new invoices that arrive by email.
What you end up with
One spreadsheet of every invoice, instead of typing them in by hand.
Copy-paste prompt
Fill in the [brackets]. Then paste it into any tool below.
Here are [12] invoices. Make a table with one row per invoice and these columns: date (YYYY-MM-DD), vendor, invoice number, total, tax, currency, file name. If a value isn't on the invoice, write “missing”. Don't calculate or guess values. After the table, list any invoice you had trouble reading.
New to this? How to build an AI agent without coding, or set up a bot in 5 plain steps →
Setup
- Put the invoices in one folder. Start with 10 or fewer.
- Upload them to ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini with the prompt.
- Spot-check at least three rows against the original PDFs, especially totals.
- Download or copy the table into your spreadsheet. To automate new invoices, an n8n workflow can extract the same fields as they arrive.
Tools that can do it today
- chatChatGPTUpload files and ask for a tableFree plan; paid plans add more
- chatClaudeFree plan; paid plans add more
- chatGeminiFree plan; paid plans add more
- automationn8nTo run it automatically on new invoicesFree to self-host; paid cloud plans
Plans and limits change; check each tool's page.
Watch out
- Check totals against the originals. AI can misread a 7 as a 1 or pick the wrong total on a busy invoice.
- Invoices include business and bank details. Use a business account or a tool your accountant approves.
- Keep the original files. Your tax records need the documents, not just the table.
What this costs to run
In a chat app it runs inside your plan. If you run it as a bot on an AI API, the bill depends on how often it runs and how much it reads.
Estimate it in the cost calculator →
Tip: Use a small AI model for simple jobs, a big one for hard ones. More in Run your bots for less and how much an AI agent costs.
Questions people ask
Which AI tools can do this?
ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or n8n can do this today. Paste the copy-paste prompt on this page into any of them and fill in the [brackets].
How hard is it to set up?
It's rated Medium. Start with the steps under “What the bot does”.
What should I watch out for?
Check totals against the originals. AI can misread a 7 as a 1 or pick the wrong total on a busy invoice.
Sources
- redditReddit r/n8n: “3 Document Workflows Small Businesses Should Set Up Before Year End”, starting with auto-logging every invoice and receipt (Sep 30, 2026)
- YouTubeYouTube: “How to Convert PDF Invoices to Excel” by Eamonn Cottrell 10,174 views · from YouTube search results, measured Oct 24, 2026
- Hacker NewsHacker News: “Launch HN: Midship (YC S24) – Turn PDFs, docs, and images into usable data” 121 points · 61 comments · measured Oct 24, 2026
- Hacker NewsHacker News: “Show HN: Open-Source Document Extraction Tool” 13 points · 2 comments · measured Oct 24, 2026
Last checked Oct 24, 2026. Self-reported results from posts are the poster's own claims.