Our "Invoice Number" parsing rule preset lets you create a parsing rule capable of detecting and extracting Invoice Numbers with only two clicks. Under the hood, a combination of pattern and keyword based recognition is used and you should be able to get reliable results without the need of tweaking the parsing rule options.
This intelligent filter does not rely on the position of your data inside the document. This means that the same parsing rule can be used to extract Invoice Numbers from a variety of different invoice layouts.
How exactly does the parsing work?
Our Invoice Number extraction filter uses a combination of pattern and keyword based recognition. Basically we first extract anything which looks like an invoice number and we then look for certain keywords nearby. Docparser comes with a ready-to-use keyword dictionary which aims to cover most invoice layouts out of the box.
Do I need to select a specific area of my document to make this work?
The presets for invoice and purchase order parsing (Invoice Totals, Invoice ID, Invoice Date, Purchase Order ID, ...) work best if you don't use the area selection tool at all and work with the entire text of the document instead.
The underlying algorithms for those filters are based on keyword dictionaries and will only work if enough text from the document is available. Cropping too much text away from the document will result in lower detection rates.
What can I do if my Invoice Numbers are not recognized?
Certain conditions need to be met for our invoice number filter to work.
First, invoice numbers are only recognized as such if they have at least four alphanumeric characters (e.g. "000123", "AB012", ... but not "149").
Secondly, our algorithm searches for certain keywords inside the document to identify the invoice number. When an invoice number is not recognized, it means most of the time that our keyword dictionary is missing a specific keyword used in your invoice template. These dictionaries can be manually modified in the parsing rule by changing the language setting from Automatic to the language on the file, or Custom.
This then allows you to edit and modify the dictionary to add or remove keywords to search for on the file.
Simply add or edit the Search Term and then choose the Value position
Please refer to this article on how to report issues with Invoice, Sales and Purchase Order parsing presets.