OCR
Purchase order OCR: the reference for what you committed to
Purchase order OCR applies optical character recognition to the document that carries your commitment: line item, quantity, negotiated unit price, lead time, cost coding. The Capture agent returns it line by line, every value tied to its position in the page. Without the order read, matching has nothing to compare against.
The problem
Without the order read, matching has nothing to compare against
The purchase order is the only document in the cycle you wrote yourself. People often conclude there is nothing to extract from it, since it already sits in the ERP (enterprise resource planning system). That holds for orders raised inside the tool. It does not hold for orders sent as PDFs by a recently acquired entity, for blanket orders kept on a spreadsheet, for contracts awarded by a third party, or for orders raised by a department that never had ERP access. The route is the same as for every other document, from the document read to the price verified, and it starts by reading the order.
Because the order sets the reference. It states the expected quantity, the price negotiated on that date, the promised lead time, the incoterm that decides who pays for carriage and insurance, and the cost coding that decides where the spend lands. An invoice with no readable commitment facing it can be neither challenged nor genuinely approved: there is no term of comparison. In most departments, matching fails more often for want of a usable order than through supplier error.
What we extract from a purchase order
The fields below are expected by default, on an order printed, exported as a PDF or received as an attachment. Each value stays tied to the exact place where it was read.
- Header
- Who committed, when, and who authorised it: the two names a spend claim rests on if it is ever contested.
- Ordered line items
- The negotiated unit price is the most useful field in the document: it is the reference the invoice will be compared with, line by line.
- Delivery
- The incoterm decides who bears carriage and insurance. Carriage billed on top when it was included is among the most common discrepancies.
- Terms and cost coding
- What determines the payment date and the cost centre that will carry the spend, hence the budget that ends up consumed.
Seventeen fields, two of which, the line item and the line number, are precisely what lets an invoice line be tied to an order line when the descriptions bear no resemblance to each other.
The check that follows
Three-way or four-way matching
Order, receipt, invoice, and the contract when there is one. The number of ways depends on the documents you hold, not on a fixed configuration.
Price discrepancy line by line
The invoiced price is compared with the negotiated unit price on the order, not with an average price observed over the period.
Quantity discrepancy
The invoiced quantity is checked against the received quantity and the ordered quantity, all brought back to the unit of the order.
Order closed or still open
The balance to deliver and the balance to invoice are tracked: a blanket order left drifting weighs as much as a price discrepancy.
Matching then opens onto its documents, highlighted side by side, with the calculation shown. Extraction on its own is self-serve at the rate of the page package you choose. Matching is then sized with you, on a quotation.
Capture
Gather and consolidate all your procurement data.
Collection by dedicated mailbox, upload, SFTP, scan, API or ERP export. Reads every format (native PDF, scan, photo, spreadsheet, structured feed), then extracts line by line: supplier, references, quantities, unit prices, discounts, taxes, terms.
The end of re-entry. A procurement history you can finally query.
What Capture detects
- Long documents and multi-page tables
- Unknown layouts
- Several languages and currencies
- Poor scans and handwriting
The plan covers extraction. Matching the documents and checking your negotiated terms are the next step and are sized with you, because they have to be connected to your tolerances and your approval routes.
See pricingNothing is lost. Everything can be checked, everything can be proven.
- The contract clause and the invoice line, highlighted side by side.
- Every extracted value stays linked to the exact place in the document where it was read.
- The same case produces the same decision, today as in six months: the rules are applied deterministically.
- No discrepancy is set aside in silence. Anything that matches no rule is raised, with its reason.
- The agent records what it did, in the order it did it: who, what, how much, when.
Frequently asked questions
Do orders already held in the ERP need extracting?
No, those can simply be exported. Extraction is for the orders that are not there: PDFs sent by a recently acquired entity, blanket orders kept on a spreadsheet, contracts awarded by a third party, orders raised outside the tool.
How is an invoice line tied to an order line?
The line item, the line number and both item references (the supplier’s and yours) are extracted separately. Matching relies on those rather than on the description, which changes from one document to the next.
Does Zylio replace my ERP?
No. Your ERP runs the process and remains the source of truth. Zylio handles the exception, on top of it, and feeds the results back. No additional development inside your system.
Which documents does Zylio handle?
Invoices, contracts and amendments, price lists and rate schedules, quotes, purchase orders, goods receipts, credit notes, statements, as native PDF, scan, photo or structured format, in several languages and currencies.
Measurable impact in every environment
More than 5 million procurement documents analysed
Between 1 and 7% of margin recovered
on the scope analysed
From 15 to 45% of time given back to teams, per FTE
depending on the scope and on data maturity
Zylio fits into your existing ecosystem.
The ERP runs the process. Zylio handles the exception and recovers the value that escapes it: invoices without a purchase order, line-by-line price discrepancies, duplicates and overbilling, off-contract spend.
Your data under high security.
Zylio meets the most demanding standards, and nothing is committed without your approval.
- Certifications
- Hosting
- Encryption
- Access
Carry on through the OCR hub
- Supplier contract and rate schedule OCRThe price schedule the order itself ought to obey.
- From the quote to the purchase orderWhat was promised before the commitment, line item by line item.
- The quantities actually receivedThe receipt document, without which there is no third way.
- Supplier invoice extractionThe document to compare, once the commitment has been read.
- Line-by-line extractionAn accurate total can hide ten wrong lines: every item, with its reference, quantity, unit price and discount.
See what this looks like on your own data
Twenty minutes, on a spend category of your choosing. We show you what the agents detect, with the evidence behind it.
- No commitment, on your own data
- Result in 3 weeks
- 20 minutes, no sales pitch
- Your data stays hosted in France
- No change of tool or process