Help Center / Accounts Payable

AI Invoice Extraction

What is this page about: How Light's AI extraction reads an uploaded bill (PDF, image, or CSV) to pre-fill the bill's header and line items, what it pulls, the supported file types, what happens when a vendor isn't recognised, and how the bill moves on after you review it.

When you upload a bill (PDF, image, or CSV) to Light, the document is run through AI extraction to pre-fill the bill's header and line items. You then review and adjust the extracted fields before the bill moves on through the workflow.

On this page

  • How it works
  • Supported file types
  • When the vendor isn't recognised
  • After review
  • Related articles

How it works

  1. Upload one or more documents via Upload bills (see Entering bills)

  2. Light extracts:

    • Vendor (matched against your vendor list)
    • Invoice number, invoice date, due date
    • Currency and totals
    • Line items: description and amount for each line. If the original document has a quantity column, the AI extracts just the final line amount rather than the quantity and unit price separately
    • Tax code for each line, plus one tax-inclusive setting for the whole document (whether the line amounts already include tax, or tax still needs to be added)
    • Suggested GL account and tax code for each line, based on your chart of accounts and the vendor's defaults

  3. The bill appears in the Inbox with the extracted data pre-filled

  4. Open the bill to review the extracted fields side-by-side with the original document (PDF viewer is shown alongside the form)

  5. Edit any field that needs correction

Supported file types

PDF, JPG, JPEG, PNG, TIFF/TIF. Maximum file size is 25MB. CSV is also accepted but it is treated as structured input, no extraction is needed.

When the vendor isn't recognised

If the extracted vendor name doesn't match an existing vendor in Light, you'll be prompted to either:

  • Pick a different existing vendor from the list, or
  • Create a new vendor from the extracted information (see Managing vendors)

After review

Once you've confirmed the bill's data is correct, the bill moves on through the standard workflow: into approval (see Bill approval) and then to payment scheduling.

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