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Azure Form Recognizer invoice model

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This article applies to: Form Recognizer v3.0 checkmark Form Recognizer v3.0. Earlier version: Form Recognizer v2.1

This article applies to: Form Recognizer v2.1 checkmark Form Recognizer v2.1. Later version: Form Recognizer v3.0

The Form Recognizer invoice model uses powerful Optical Character Recognition (OCR) capabilities to analyze and extract key fields and line items from sales invoices, utility bills, and purchase orders. Invoices can be of various formats and quality including phone-captured images, scanned documents, and digital PDFs. The API analyzes invoice text; extracts key information such as customer name, billing address, due date, and amount due; and returns a structured JSON data representation. The model currently supports both English and Spanish invoices.

Supported document types:

  • Invoices
  • Utility bills
  • Sales orders
  • Purchase orders

Automated invoice processing

Automated invoice processing is the process of extracting key accounts payable fields from billing account documents. Extracted data includes line items from invoices integrated with your accounts payable (AP) workflows for reviews and payments. Historically, the accounts payable process has been done manually and, hence, very time consuming. Accurate extraction of key data from invoices is typically the first and one of the most critical steps in the invoice automation process.

Sample invoice processed with Form Recognizer Studio:

Screenshot of a sample invoice analyzed in the Form Recognizer Studio.

Sample invoice processed with Form Recognizer Sample Labeling tool:

Screenshot of a sample invoice.

Development options

The following tools are supported by Form Recognizer v3.0:

Feature Resources Model ID
Invoice model prebuilt-invoice

The following tools are supported by Form Recognizer v2.1:

Feature Resources
Invoice model

Input requirements

  • For best results, provide one clear photo or high-quality scan per document.

  • Supported file formats:

    Model PDF Image:
    JPEG/JPG, PNG, BMP, and TIFF    		 Microsoft Office:
    Word (DOCX), Excel (XLS), PowerPoint (PPT), and HTML
    Read ✔ ✔ ✱ REST API version
    2022/06/30-preview
    Layout ✔ ✔
    General Document ✔ ✔
    Prebuilt ✔ ✔
    Custom ✔ ✔

    ✱ Microsoft Office files are currently not supported for other models or versions.

  • For PDF and TIFF, up to 2000 pages can be processed (with a free tier subscription, only the first two pages are processed).

  • The file size for analyzing documents must be less than 500 MB for paid (S0) tier and 4 MB for free (F0) tier.

  • Image dimensions must be between 50 x 50 pixels and 10,000 px x 10,000 pixels.

  • PDF dimensions are up to 17 x 17 inches, corresponding to Legal or A3 paper size, or smaller.

  • If your PDFs are password-locked, you must remove the lock before submission.

  • The minimum height of the text to be extracted is 12 pixels for a 1024 x 768 pixel image. This dimension corresponds to about 8-point text at 150 dots per inch (DPI).

  • For custom model training, the maximum number of pages for training data is 500 for the custom template model and 50,000 for the custom neural model.

  • For custom extraction model training, the total size of training data is 50 MB for template model and 1G-MB for the neural model.

  • For custom classification model training, the total size of training data is 1GB with a maximum of 10,000 pages.

  • Supported file formats: JPEG, PNG, PDF, and TIFF
  • For PDF and TIFF, up to 2000 pages are processed. For free tier subscribers, only the first two pages are processed.
  • The file size must be less than 50 MB and dimensions at least 50 x 50 pixels and at most 10,000 x 10,000 pixels.

Try invoice data extraction

See how data, including customer information, vendor details, and line items, is extracted from invoices. You need the following resources:

  • An Azure subscription—you can create one for free

  • A Form Recognizer instance in the Azure portal. You can use the free pricing tier (F0) to try the service. After your resource deploys, select Go to resource to get your key and endpoint.

Screenshot: keys and endpoint location in the Azure portal.

Form Recognizer Studio

  1. On the Form Recognizer Studio home page, select Invoices

  2. You can analyze the sample invoice or select the + Add button to upload your own sample.

  3. Select the Analyze button:

    Screenshot: analyze invoice menu.

Try Form Recognizer Studio

Form Recognizer Sample Labeling tool

  1. Navigate to the Form Recognizer Sample Tool.

  2. On the sample tool home page, select the Use prebuilt model to get data tile.

    Screenshot of layout model analyze results process.

  3. Select the Form Type to analyze from the dropdown menu.

  4. Choose a URL for the file you would like to analyze from the below options:

  5. In the Source field, select URL from the dropdown menu, paste the selected URL, and select the Fetch button.

    Screenshot of source location dropdown menu.

  6. In the Form recognizer service endpoint field, paste the endpoint that you obtained with your Form Recognizer subscription.

  7. In the key field, paste the key you obtained from your Form Recognizer resource.

    Screenshot showing the select-form-type dropdown menu.

  8. Select Run analysis. The Form Recognizer Sample Labeling tool calls the Analyze Prebuilt API and analyze the document.

  9. View the results - see the key-value pairs extracted, line items, highlighted text extracted and tables detected.

    Screenshot of layout model analyze results operation.

Note

The Sample Labeling tool does not support the BMP file format. This is a limitation of the tool not the Form Recognizer Service.

Supported languages and locales

Note

Form Recognizer auto-detects language and locale data.

Supported languages Details
• English (en) United States (us), Australia (-au), Canada (-ca), Great Britain (-gb), India (-in)
• Spanish (es) Spain (es)
• German (de) Germany (de)
• French (fr) France (fr)
• Italian (it) Italy (it)
• Portuguese (pt) Portugal (pt), Brazil (br)
• Dutch (de) Netherlands (de)

Field extraction

Name Type Description Standardized output
CustomerName String Invoiced customer
CustomerId String Customer reference ID
PurchaseOrder String Purchase order reference number
InvoiceId String ID for this specific invoice (often "Invoice Number")
InvoiceDate Date Date the invoice was issued yyyy-mm-dd
DueDate Date Date payment for this invoice is due yyyy-mm-dd
VendorName String Vendor name
VendorTaxId String The taxpayer number associated with the vendor
VendorAddress String Vendor mailing address
VendorAddressRecipient String Name associated with the VendorAddress
CustomerAddress String Mailing address for the Customer
CustomerTaxId String The taxpayer number associated with the customer
CustomerAddressRecipient String Name associated with the CustomerAddress
BillingAddress String Explicit billing address for the customer
BillingAddressRecipient String Name associated with the BillingAddress
ShippingAddress String Explicit shipping address for the customer
ShippingAddressRecipient String Name associated with the ShippingAddress
PaymentTerm String The terms of payment for the invoice
Sub​Total Number Subtotal field identified on this invoice Integer
TotalTax Number Total tax field identified on this invoice Integer
InvoiceTotal Number (USD) Total new charges associated with this invoice Integer
AmountDue Number (USD) Total Amount Due to the vendor Integer
ServiceAddress String Explicit service address or property address for the customer
ServiceAddressRecipient String Name associated with the ServiceAddress
RemittanceAddress String Explicit remittance or payment address for the customer
RemittanceAddressRecipient String Name associated with the RemittanceAddress
ServiceStartDate Date First date for the service period (for example, a utility bill service period) yyyy-mm-dd
ServiceEndDate Date End date for the service period (for example, a utility bill service period) yyyy-mm-dd
PreviousUnpaidBalance Number Explicit previously unpaid balance Integer
CurrencyCode String The currency code associated with the extracted amount
PaymentDetails Array An array that holds Payment Option details such as IBANand SWIFT
TotalDiscount Number The total discount applied to an invoice Integer
TaxItems (en-IN only) Array AN array that holds added tax information such as CGST, IGST, and SGST. This line item is currently only available for the en-in locale

Line items

Following are the line items extracted from an invoice in the JSON output response (the following output uses this sample invoice)

Name Type Description Text (line item #1) Value (standardized output)
Items String Full string text line of the line item 3/4/2021 A123 Consulting Services 2 hours $30.00 10% $60.00
Amount Number The amount of the line item $60.00 100
Description String The text description for the invoice line item Consulting service Consulting service
Quantity Number The quantity for this invoice line item 2 2
UnitPrice Number The net or gross price (depending on the gross invoice setting of the invoice) of one unit of this item $30.00 30
ProductCode String Product code, product number, or SKU associated with the specific line item A123
Unit String The unit of the line item, e.g, kg, lb etc. Hours
Date Date Date corresponding to each line item. Often it's a date the line item was shipped 3/4/2021 2021-03-04
Tax Number Tax associated with each line item. Possible values include tax amount and tax Y/N 10.00
TaxRate Number Tax Rate associated with each line item. 10%

The invoice key-value pairs and line items extracted are in the documentResults section of the JSON output.

Key-value pairs

The prebuilt invoice 2022-06-30 and later releases support returns key-value pairs at no extra cost. Key-value pairs are specific spans within the invoice that identify a label or key and its associated response or value. In an invoice, these pairs could be the label and the value the user entered for that field or telephone number. The AI model is trained to extract identifiable keys and values based on a wide variety of document types, formats, and structures.

Keys can also exist in isolation when the model detects that a key exists, with no associated value or when processing optional fields. For example, a middle name field may be left blank on a form in some instances. key-value pairs are always spans of text contained in the document. For documents where the same value is described in different ways, for example, customer/user, the associated key is either customer or user (based on context).

Supported locales

Prebuilt invoice v2.1 supports invoices in the en-us locale.

Fields extracted

The Invoice service extracts the text, tables, and 26 invoice fields. Following are the fields extracted from an invoice in the JSON output response (the following output uses this sample invoice).

Name Type Description Text Value (standardized output)
CustomerName string Customer being invoiced Microsoft Corp
CustomerId string Reference ID for the customer CID-12345
PurchaseOrder string A purchase order reference number PO-3333
InvoiceId string ID for this specific invoice (often "Invoice Number") INV-100
InvoiceDate date Date the invoice was issued 11/15/2019 2019-11-15
DueDate date Date payment for this invoice is due 12/15/2019 2019-12-15
VendorName string Vendor who has created this invoice CONTOSO LTD.
VendorAddress string Mailing address for the Vendor 123 456th St New York, NY, 10001
VendorAddressRecipient string Name associated with the VendorAddress Contoso Headquarters
CustomerAddress string Mailing address for the Customer 123 Other Street, Redmond WA, 98052
CustomerAddressRecipient string Name associated with the CustomerAddress Microsoft Corp
BillingAddress string Explicit billing address for the customer 123 Bill Street, Redmond WA, 98052
BillingAddressRecipient string Name associated with the BillingAddress Microsoft Services
ShippingAddress string Explicit shipping address for the customer 123 Ship Street, Redmond WA, 98052
ShippingAddressRecipient string Name associated with the ShippingAddress Microsoft Delivery
Sub​Total number Subtotal field identified on this invoice $100.00 100
TotalTax number Total tax field identified on this invoice $10.00 10
InvoiceTotal number Total new charges associated with this invoice $110.00 110
AmountDue number Total Amount Due to the vendor $610.00 610
ServiceAddress string Explicit service address or property address for the customer 123 Service Street, Redmond WA, 98052
ServiceAddressRecipient string Name associated with the ServiceAddress Microsoft Services
RemittanceAddress string Explicit remittance or payment address for the customer 123 Remit St New York, NY, 10001
RemittanceAddressRecipient string Name associated with the RemittanceAddress Contoso Billing
ServiceStartDate date First date for the service period (for example, a utility bill service period) 10/14/2019 2019-10-14
ServiceEndDate date End date for the service period (for example, a utility bill service period) 11/14/2019 2019-11-14
PreviousUnpaidBalance number Explicit previously unpaid balance $500.00 500

Following are the line items extracted from an invoice in the JSON output response (the following output uses this sample invoice)

Name Type Description Text (line item #1) Value (standardized output)
Items string Full string text line of the line item 3/4/2021 A123 Consulting Services 2 hours $30.00 10% $60.00
Amount number The amount of the line item $60.00 100
Description string The text description for the invoice line item Consulting service Consulting service
Quantity number The quantity for this invoice line item 2 2
UnitPrice number The net or gross price (depending on the gross invoice setting of the invoice) of one unit of this item $30.00 30
ProductCode string Product code, product number, or SKU associated with the specific line item A123
Unit string The unit of the line item, e.g, kg, lb etc. hours
Date date Date corresponding to each line item. Often it's a date the line item was shipped 3/4/2021 2021-03-04
Tax number Tax associated with each line item. Possible values include tax amount, tax %, and tax Y/N 10%

JSON output

The JSON output has three parts:

  • "readResults" node contains all of the recognized text and selection marks. Text is organized by page, then by line, then by individual words.
  • "pageResults" node contains the tables and cells extracted with their bounding boxes, confidence, and a reference to the lines and words in "readResults".
  • "documentResults" node contains the invoice-specific values and line items that the model discovered. It's where to find all the fields from the invoice such as invoice ID, ship to, bill to, customer, total, line items and lots more.

Migration guide

Next steps