How to Convert Invoices and Receipts into Data

What Convert Does

Convert reads invoices and receipts: the vendor, the date, the document number, the currency, every line item with its quantity and price, taxes, shipping, discounts, and the totals. Then it checks the arithmetic the document prints, so you can see at a glance whether the figures add up.

Documents in Convert are kept separate from your bank transactions. A receipt never becomes a transaction, and nothing here affects your dashboard or cash flow. When you're done, you export the documents as a spreadsheet or as bills and expenses for your accounting software.

Step 1: Add Documents

Open Convert in the sidebar and click Add documents. Convert accepts PDFs and photos (PNG, JPG, WEBP, or HEIC). The arrow beside the button asks how the files are grouped:

• Separate documents: each file is its own invoice or receipt. This is the default.
• One document, several pages: the files are pages of one document, in the order you picked them. Use this for a long invoice you photographed a page at a time.

On a phone, the add button also offers Take a photo, which opens your camera so the photo becomes one document. To file documents straight into a folder, open the folder and add them from there.

Each document is read in the background and appears as soon as it's done, usually within seconds.

Step 2: Review a Document

Click any document to open it. The values Bankflow read are on the left, and the original is on the right, where you can zoom, fit the page, and move between pages.

Find where a value came from

Click a label, such as Total or Tax, and the original moves to where that value was read, with it highlighted. This works on photos as well as PDFs. Click a line item to find it the same way.

Check the arithmetic

Under What the document asserts, Bankflow lists each sum the document implies and whether it holds: that the lines add up to the subtotal, that subtotal plus tax equals the total, that paid plus due equals the total, that each line's quantity times price equals its amount, and that the tax rate is consistent. A tick means it adds up; a warning means it doesn't; a dash means the document didn't print enough to check. A line whose figures don't multiply out is marked in the lines table.

Arithmetic that closes is strong evidence the document was read correctly, though not a guarantee.

What the file records about itself

For PDFs, Bankflow also shows what the file says about its own history, such as which software produced it and whether it was changed long after it was created. These are signals, not a verdict: they can't tell you whether a document is genuine, and a document whose totals add up is usually right whatever its metadata says. Photos have no file history, so nothing is shown for them.

Step 3: Correct What Was Misread

Click any figure to edit it: a total, or a line's quantity, price, or amount. Every correction re-checks the whole document, and when the figures finally add up, Bankflow tells you so. Clearing a figure means the document doesn't print it; it isn't treated as zero.

If a document was read as the wrong kind, change it with the selector in the top left: Invoice / bill or Receipt.

Organise with Folders

The Convert page has three tabs:

• Files: every document. Search by file name, vendor, number, or folder; filter to invoices or receipts; and sort.
• Folders: your folders, each with its document count, when it last changed, and its total. A folder holding more than one currency shows Mixed rather than adding different currencies together. Documents you haven't filed are under Ungrouped documents.
• Activity: every conversion, with when it was uploaded, how long it took, and what it cost.

Click Add folder to create one with a name, icon, and colour. Click a folder to open it, add documents to it, or rename it. Deleting a folder doesn't delete its documents; they become ungrouped.

On the Files tab, select documents (Shift+click selects a range) to move them to a folder, export them, download their originals, or delete them. Downloaded originals are renamed by date, vendor, and total (for example 2026-08-14_Blue-Bottle-Coffee_12.50.jpg), so you don't end up with a folder of files called IMG_4821. Several download together as one ZIP. Deleting a document asks you to confirm and removes its stored file too.

Categories

Bankflow files a category against a document when it recognises the vendor: from the category you gave an earlier document from the same vendor, or the category your transactions use for that merchant. The category matters when you export bills, where it becomes the expense account each bill posts to.

What It Costs

Converting a document uses one credit per page, the same as a statement. You aren't charged when:

• the conversion fails,
• the file turns out not to be an invoice or receipt at all, or
• it's a bank statement, in which case Convert tells you to import it on the Statements page instead.

If you run out of credits, the conversion pauses rather than failing. Top up, then use Retry on the Activity tab; the file you uploaded is still there. See credits and billing.

Other Ways In

A workflow can pick up invoices and receipts from a watched Dropbox folder, or from photos you email to your import address, and convert them without you opening Convert at all.

Next Step

Once your documents are checked, export them as a spreadsheet, as QuickBooks or Xero bills, or as paid expenses.