Why invoices are worth reading properly
An invoice is a claim about money. Most of the time it is correct, and the cost of checking each one by hand is higher than the errors it would catch, so nobody checks. The errors that slip through are the ones that repeat: a duplicate submitted twice, a subscription that went up without a note, a tax line calculated on the wrong base.
Once invoices are structured data, checking stops being a chore and becomes a filter. Every invoice from a vendor, in order, with the amounts side by side, makes an increase obvious in a way that a folder of PDFs never will.
The fields Karchu extracts
Vendor name, invoice number, invoice date, due date, subtotal, tax, total, currency, payment status and line items with their descriptions and amounts. Each field carries its own confidence, so a clear total and an uncertain vendor name are not treated as equally reliable.
Fields the reader cannot resolve stay empty and are marked for review with the original document shown beside them. Nothing is filled in from a plausible guess.
The checks that run automatically
Line items are summed and compared with the subtotal. Subtotal plus tax is compared with the stated total. A mismatch beyond a small rounding tolerance is surfaced with the expected figure, the stated figure and the difference.
Duplicates are caught on a combination of vendor, invoice number, amount and date, which is what makes the same bill submitted through two channels detectable rather than invisible.
Where an invoice can be tied to a transaction in your uploaded statements, the link is shown with its confidence and the evidence behind it, and you can accept or reject it.
What it will not claim
Karchu does not promise perfect extraction and does not publish an accuracy number it cannot measure. Low confidence output is routed to review by design, which is a slower promise than perfect reading but a more honest one.
It also does not offer tax advice. Tax figures are read from the document and reported as they appear.
Frequently asked questions
What does an invoice analyzer do?
It reads an invoice or bill and pulls out the fields that matter: vendor, invoice number, invoice date, due date, subtotal, tax, total, currency, line items and payment status. Those fields then become searchable, sortable data instead of a file sitting in a folder.
Which invoices can Karchu read?
Vendor invoices, SaaS invoices, utility bills, contractor invoices and purchase orders, as PDF or as an image. Invoices in different currencies and tax conventions are handled, and the currency is captured with the amounts rather than assumed.
Can it tell me whether an invoice was paid?
It can try to link an invoice to the transaction that settled it by comparing amount, date, vendor and account. When a match is found the confidence of that match is shown, and you can accept or reject it. Unmatched invoices stay visible as unmatched.
Does it check invoices for errors?
It does arithmetic checks, subtotal plus tax against the stated total, and line item sums against the subtotal, and it flags duplicates: the same vendor, number and amount arriving twice. It cannot judge whether the price you agreed is the price you were charged unless that information is in your own records.
Is this an accounts payable system?
No. Karchu reads invoices and connects them to your transactions. It does not run approval chains or make payments. If your goal is understanding what you were billed and whether it matches what left your account, that is exactly what this does.
Which plan includes invoice reading?
Invoice and bill reading is part of the business document handling on the Business and Enterprise plans. Receipts are available more broadly.