Document and invoice automation for finance teams drowning in paper
Most finance departments do not have a data problem, they have a paper problem. Invoices arrive as WhatsApp photographs, scanned PDFs and creased delivery notes, and somebody has to retype every line before a payment run can happen. This system reads them as they arrive, checks them against the purchase order and goods received note, and hands your accountant a prepared transaction to approve instead of a pile to capture.
The bottleneck is checking, not typing
Capturing an invoice is the quick part. Verifying it takes far longer: does the unit price match what was ordered, was the full quantity received, has this already been paid under a slightly different reference, is the VAT arithmetic right. Those are the checks that get skipped when month-end pressure builds, and they are where money leaks. We automate the checking first and treat data capture as a by-product of it.
Built for how documents actually arrive
A supplier in Msasa sends a photograph of an invoice taken at an angle under a fluorescent light. A driver hands in a delivery note with a handwritten GRV number. All of it comes in through a dedicated WhatsApp number, a shared mailbox, a network scanner or a watched folder, and the system reads printed fields, stamps and common handwritten entries. Anything it cannot read confidently goes to a person rather than being guessed at.
Dual currency, VAT and fiscal detail
Local documents carry complications that generic international software handles badly. An invoice may be denominated in United States dollars but settled in Zimbabwe Gold at the rate ruling on the invoice date, with VAT split across both. We record the currency, the rate applied and where that rate came from, so any ledger figure traces back to the document. We do not replace your fiscalisation device or file returns for you, but we flag tax invoices missing details you need before claiming input VAT.
Matching and the exception queue
Each invoice is matched against its purchase order and goods received note within tolerances your finance manager sets, so a rounding difference clears automatically and a short delivery does not. Duplicates are caught by comparing supplier, amount, date range and document number rather than exact reference alone, which is how the same invoice slips through twice. Expired tax clearance, changed banking details and price variances outside tolerance raise an exception, and each one goes to a named person with the document and a plain-language reason attached.
Invoices you send, not only the ones you receive
The same engine runs outbound. InOne CRM raises invoices and recurring billing from a job, a booking or a signed quotation, delivers them by email or WhatsApp with a payment link, and issues statements on a schedule. Receipts and mobile money confirmations are read back and reconciled against open items, so the debtors age reflects what has actually been paid and reminders stop the moment an invoice clears.
An archive your auditors can search
Every document is stored with its extracted fields, matching history and approval trail, searchable by supplier, purchase order, date or amount. When an auditor asks for the paperwork behind an old transaction, it is a search rather than an afternoon in the strongroom. Documents live in your own environment or a dedicated tenant, under a retention period you agree with us.
What it covers
Ingests from anywhere
WhatsApp, email, scanners and watched folders feed one pipeline. Your suppliers never have to change how they send you documents.
Line-level extraction
Not just the total. Quantities, unit prices, discounts and references are extracted so matching happens at the level where disputes actually occur.
Duplicate and anomaly checks
Repeat submissions, altered banking details on familiar letterhead and amounts well outside a supplier's normal range are raised before payment, not after.
Posts into your existing system
Sage, Pastel, Palladium, QuickBooks, Xero, Odoo or an in-house package. If it has an API or accepts a structured import, we connect to it instead of asking you to migrate.
Your delegation of authority, encoded
Existing approval limits become rules. Nothing posts or pays above a threshold without the sign-off your policy already requires.
Degrades gracefully
When the link drops, documents queue locally and process when connectivity returns. Nothing is lost in a power cut or a fibre break.
How it works
Site assessment
Week zero. We follow an invoice from the gate to the payment run and take away a representative batch of your real documents, including the ugly ones.
Integration and observation
Weeks one to three. We connect the mailbox, WhatsApp number and accounting system, then run extraction alongside your existing process without posting anything, so you can compare it against what your clerks captured.
Rules and guardrails
Week four. Tolerances, approval limits, exception routing and duplicate rules are agreed and tested against historical documents, so you see how last quarter would have been handled before this one is.
Go live and tune
Week five onward. The system takes the workflow and people keep the exceptions. We review the queue with you weekly. A first system typically takes four to six weeks.
Questions buyers ask
Will it read a photograph taken on a phone in poor light?
Usually, including angled and creased documents, but not always, and that is the point of the design. When confidence in a field is low the system asks a person rather than posting a number it is unsure about. We measure this on your own documents during the observation phase, so you know what to expect before going live.
Do we have to replace our accounting system?
No. This sits in front of whatever you already run and feeds it. Replacing a finance system is a separate project with its own risk, and it is rarely what is causing your capture backlog.
Does it submit anything to the revenue authority?
No. We do not file returns or replace your fiscalisation device. We make sure the data going into the systems that do is complete and correctly classified.
What happens to handwritten delivery notes and signatures?
Printed fields and common handwritten entries such as quantities, dates and GRV numbers are extracted. Signatures are captured as images and attached as proof of delivery rather than interpreted, and anything ambiguous is routed to a person with the image alongside it.
How do we know it has not quietly made a mistake?
Every posted transaction keeps a link to its source document and the fields it came from, so any figure traces back in one click. Exceptions and overrides are logged against the person who actioned them.
Book a platform briefing
Fifteen minutes with an engineer, not a sales pitch. Bring your messiest supplier invoices and we will walk through how they would move through your finance function. Email sales@eigenstatesystems.com or WhatsApp +263 77 636 6999.