OCR Technology for MYOB Acumatica

Extracting, verifying, and keying in data from document-based invoices and sales orders involves a significant amount of effort and resources, especially when dealing with a high number of transactions. While ERP systems like MYOB Acumatica are very capable of analysing and displaying your data once it is in the system, errors and inefficiencies arise when this information needs to be manually entered.

What is Optical Character Recognition?

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is the process by which a computer can read, digitise and process handwritten or printed text. It is a mix of pattern recognition and machine learning. The technology reads the information in a document and transcribes it into a usable digital form. This turns your documents and data into actionable information without manual intervention.

With MYOB Acumatica’s OCR capability: 

• Supplier invoices received by email are automatically brought into the system.
• Documents are captured and queued for processing.
• Key data is recognised and extracted within seconds by MYOB Acumatica.
• Depending on the information provided, MYOB Acumatica can also match purchase orders and invoices.

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Benefits of OCR Technology

The introduction of OCR technology into your system will drastically cut down on manual data entry. Modern opportunities to unleash the power of your data will create a lasting impact for your team. Being able to automate the upload of transactional data directly into your system will significantly reduce errors and free up your resources to be better used throughout the business.

Because OCR is automating AP Bill entry, it can bring significant benefit to your organisation, especially if you have a high volume of transactions:

• Greater efficiency and productivity in business workflows
• Reduced process cycles times
• Reduced labour costs and errors
• Improved process visibility for leadership
• Streamlined and automated auditability
• Improved data accessibility for better customer service
• Enhanced quality of work for employees

OCR Technology is available now

As of MYOB Acumatica 2025R1, OCR is available for AP document recognition and processing. Every site has a base-level allowance of 30 free pages per month that can be processed through AP Bills and Expense Management. You can elect to use a paid tier that better reflects your usage to avoid per-document overage charges. Our team can assist you in determining the best plan to suit your requirements. Please note that other AI features in MYOB Acumatica, such as Anomaly Detection and Auto Complete, are included as standard functionality, with no paid tiers.

Improving how you use OCR in MYOB Acumatica

OCR is powered by Machine Learning (ML) algorithms. Acumatica and MYOB’s initial development of the technology gives it a head start on scanning and cataloguing invoice information, but it still relies on training to produce the best possible result.

If the key text in the invoice is not automatically detected, you can manually assist in recognition by selecting these fields directly. This teaches the system to automatically match this information in the future.

Through our testing with this functionality, we have also observed:

• Matching is stronger when Alternate IDs for stock and non-stock items are included in documents.
• If a purchase order includes a single receipt, it will be matched automatically.
• If this could be matched to multiple receipts, users are prompted to select the correct bill for matching.
• Matching may not be possible without additional input if there is no receipt for the system to reference.

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Alternatives to OCR in MYOB Acumatica

We also support a range of integrated technology solutions that also offer OCR or AP Bill Automation.

• Dataline
• ProSpend
• Traild

These products can also match invoices to purchase orders and receipts, further speeding up your processes. They also provide additional protection against fraudulent payments. ProSpend also has a virtual cards module to give you better control over your team’s spending.

What is the difference between OCR and eInvoicing?

The Australian and New Zealand Governments have recently announced a push for eInvoicing functionality to further automate the processing of transactional data. eInvoicing means that you would no longer have to generate paper-based or PDF-based invoices that need to be printed, emailed, or manually entered into your system. Instead, all this information would be sent digitally to your suppliers and buyers through an Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) connection.

However, adoption of this new e-invoicing technology is likely to be slow and still requires integration with your ERP system. OCR functionality will maintain the efficiency of MYOB Acumatica by streamlining the automatic capture of your transactional data from paper and PDF-based invoices.

If you would like to learn more about the functionality of MYOB Acumatica, email us at acsa@kilimanjaro-consulting.com, or call us on 1300 857 464 (AU) or 0800 436 774 (NZ).