Effortlessly Capture Invoice Details with AI-Powered Multiline Recognition

Q: How accurate is it on long or complex invoices?

Accuracy stays consistent regardless of page count or line-item complexity — a two-page invoice and a twenty-page one are read with the same reliability.

Q: Which accounting systems does this integrate with?

Sage 50, Sage 200, Sage Evolution, Sage Intacct, Sage Construction, SAP Business One, Xero, and Orderwise.

Multiline Invoice Recognition, Reinvented by AI

AI That Actually Understands Invoices

Some invoices are one line. Most aren’t. If you handle supplier invoices with dozens of line items spread across several pages, subcontractor charges by site, materials broken out by project, services split across departments, you already know that traditional OCR falls apart the moment a layout changes.

PaperLess’s multiline engine doesn’t work that way anymore, because it isn’t OCR wearing an AI label, it’s AI built to actually understand invoices, not just scan them. There’s no template to build, no zone to draw, no per-supplier setup before it can read a document correctly. Point it at a multi-line, multi-page invoice, however it’s laid out, and it reads it the way a person would: by recognising what a line item is, not by matching it against a pattern someone configured months ago. Reliably, near enough every time, regardless of how many pages it runs to or how the line items are arranged.

This is what AI was always supposed to do for accounts payable, not speed up manual work, replace the need for it. Once it’s captured every line, that same intelligence carries straight through into VAT reconciliation, nominal coding, and posting, without anyone re-keying a figure or nudging a line into the right cost centre by hand. It’s the most capable multiline reading technology PaperLess has ever built, and for accounts payable teams still treating complex invoices as the exception that needs manual handling, it’s the clearest sign yet of where AP is headed: full automation of invoice data entry, powered end to end by AI that actually understands what it’s reading.

Integrates with

No zones. No templates. No setup per supplier.

Older invoice-capture tools ask you to teach them where to look, draw a box around the quantity column, mark the region where VAT sits, repeat for every supplier layout you deal with. Change suppliers, or have one supplier tweak their invoice template, and you’re back in setup mode.

PaperLess’s current multiline recognition drops that step entirely. The AI reads the structure of the page itself, what’s a line item, what’s a subtotal, what’s a summary row, the same way a person scanning the invoice would. It doesn’t matter whether the invoice is two pages or twenty, or whether the line items run to a handful or several hundred: accuracy holds steady. That’s a meaningful shift for construction firms, multi-site operators, and any accounts payable team that used to budget extra review time for their messiest suppliers.

It also means onboarding a new supplier for the first time is no different from processing one you’ve worked with for years. A subcontractor brought on for a single project, a one-off supplier used for an unusual purchase, a regular vendor who switches invoicing software without telling you, none of it requires a call to PaperLess, a support ticket, or a delay before that invoice can be processed. It arrives, it gets read, and it moves through your workflow the same as everything else.

Just tell PaperLess AI what you need

This is the part that changes how AP teams actually work with the data, not just how it’s captured. Once an invoice is read, you can prompt PaperLess AI to present the information the way you actually need it, not just the way it happened to print on the page.

A few examples of what that looks like in practice:

Group costs by project or site. Got an invoice where charges for three different sites are interleaved across the line items? Ask PaperLess AI to group and total the costs by site, and it will, without you touching a spreadsheet.

Pull the summary, skip the detail. If all you need is the cost breakdown from the summary section of a long invoice rather than every individual line, say so. PaperLess AI reads it that way and hands back exactly that view.

Surface specific coding fields. Ask for the nominal codes, tax codes, departments, or project codes tied to particular line items, and PaperLess AI extracts and displays them, based on what’s actually shown on the invoice, no manual lookup, no guessing which line belongs to which cost centre.

In short: the invoice stays exactly as the supplier sent it. How you see the data afterward is up to you.

Built for the invoices that used to be a headache

Multi-page invoices with line items scattered across departments, sites, or projects are exactly the documents this update was built for. A few common scenarios PaperLess now handles cleanly:

Construction and subcontractor invoices where costs need to be split and coded by site before they can be posted. Multi-department invoices, such as shared services or facilities charges spread across cost centres, that used to require manual re-keying. Long supplier invoices where finance only cares about the summary totals, not thirty individual line items. Invoices where the tax treatment or nominal coding varies line to line, and getting it wrong means a VAT mismatch down the line.

Everything still reconciles automatically

Multiline reading is only half the job, the numbers still need to add up. PaperLess continues to run automatic VAT reconciliation across every line, flagging mismatches before an invoice ever reaches posting, and the self-learning layer keeps applying nominal and VAT codes based on how your team has coded that supplier before. The AI reading update makes the front end faster and more accurate; the reconciliation and learning behind it hasn’t changed.

Works with the systems you already run

PaperLess connects directly to Sage (50, 200, Evolution, Intacct, Construction), SAP Business One, Xero, and Orderwise, so captured and coded invoice data posts straight through without a separate import step.

Experience Invoice Processing Automation

View Case Studies

Pricing was competitive to start with, and the value we've got out of it has more than justified what we've paid.

Spreadex

Nick Brown

UNIT4 Multivers PaperLess clearly stood above all the other solutions that we have analysed.

Unit4 Multivers

Mark Heem

Writing purchase orders by hand used to be time-consuming. With PaperLess, orders are now produced much quicker.

Accounts Team

J. A. Brooks

Frequently Asked Questions

What is multiline invoice recognition?

Multiline invoice recognition is an advanced invoice automation capability that captures detailed line-item data from supplier invoices rather than only overall totals. It extracts quantities, descriptions, VAT rates, and individual line amounts required for precise cost allocation. By automating line-level data capture, organisations can allocate expenses accurately across departments, projects, cost centres, or nominal accounts without manually re-keying information. This enhances financial reporting accuracy while maintaining structured validation within accounts payable workflows. Multiline recognition is particularly valuable for businesses processing complex or high-volume invoices that require granular financial control.

How accurate is it on long or complex invoices?

Can I ask PaperLess AI to group or summarise costs a specific way?

Yes. You can prompt PaperLess AI directly, for example, asking it to group costs by project or site, pull only summary-level totals, or surface specific nominal codes, tax codes, departments, or projects from the invoice.

What line-level data can be extracted?

The system extracts individual line descriptions, quantities, VAT percentages, unit values, and total line amounts required for detailed accounting allocation. This ensures each component of an invoice can be coded correctly to the appropriate department, project, or cost centre. By capturing structured line data automatically, finance teams reduce manual coding effort while improving reporting accuracy and consistency across complex supplier invoices.

Can VAT and nominal codes be applied automatically?

Yes. Based on configured rules and historical supplier behaviour, VAT rates and nominal codes can be assigned automatically to each invoice line. This reduces manual coding decisions and improves consistency across recurring supplier transactions. Automated allocation strengthens financial reporting accuracy and ensures compliance with internal accounting policies while reducing the risk of misclassification.

Does multiline recognition improve financial accuracy?

Yes. By capturing invoice details at the line level, the system reduces allocation errors and eliminates inconsistencies caused by manual entry. This is particularly important for project-based organisations or businesses that allocate costs across multiple departments. Automated line capture ensures financial data is structured correctly before posting, improving reporting reliability and governance.

Which organisations benefit most from multiline recognition?

Organisations handling complex, multi-page invoices or allocating costs across departments and projects benefit significantly from multiline automation. Construction firms, project-based businesses, and companies processing high volumes of detailed supplier invoices gain improved reporting precision and reduced administrative workload. Multiline recognition enables granular control without increasing manual processing time.

Which accounting systems does this integrate with?