Invoice Processing
How PlateCost extracts and analyzes data from food distributor invoices
PlateCost's AI-powered invoice processing is the foundation of everything else — recipe costing, vendor comparison, and spend tracking all start with accurate invoice data.
Supported formats
PlateCost accepts invoices in any of these formats:
| Format | How to submit |
|---|---|
| Upload directly through the dashboard | |
| Photo | Take a picture with your phone or upload an image file |
| Forward invoice emails to your unique PlateCost address | |
| CSV/Excel | Upload spreadsheet exports from your vendor portal |
For best results with photos, ensure the invoice is well-lit, flat, and fully visible in the frame. The AI can handle slight angles and shadows, but clearer images produce faster, more accurate results.
What gets extracted
For each invoice, PlateCost extracts:
- Vendor name and invoice number
- Invoice date and delivery date
- Line items — product name, brand, pack size
- Quantities and units of measure
- Unit price and extended price
- Category — automatically classified (protein, produce, dairy, etc.)
- Totals — subtotal, tax, fees, credits
AI extraction accuracy
PlateCost uses specialized AI models trained on thousands of food distributor invoices. Accuracy improves over time as the system learns your vendors' invoice formats.
- First invoice from a vendor: ~95% accuracy on line items
- After 5+ invoices: ~99% accuracy with format recognition
- Manual corrections train the model for future invoices from that vendor
Bulk upload
For initial setup or catching up on historical data, use the bulk upload feature:
- Go to Invoices > Bulk Upload
- Drag and drop up to 50 invoices at once
- PlateCost queues them for processing and notifies you when complete
Bulk uploads are processed in the background. You can continue using the platform while invoices are being extracted.
Invoice review workflow
After extraction, each invoice enters a review state:
Extracted
AI has processed the invoice and extracted data
Review
You verify the extracted data (optional but recommended for the first few)
Approved
Data flows into your cost tracking and recipe costing
Auto-approval
You did not start a restaurant to type invoices. In Settings → Organization, turn on Approve confident invoices for me and set the bar (85% by default). When PlateCost is at least that sure it read an invoice correctly, it approves it for you — but only when everything else lines up too:
- the checks found nothing to query;
- every line already matches an item you buy;
- the printed total and the lines agree (within two cents, or half a percent on a big invoice);
- the vendor is one you have bought from before;
- it is not a repeat of an invoice you already have.
Anything else still waits for you, and the row says why — "Held for review: totals differ by $3.10" — so you know what you are looking at before you open it.
Auto-approved invoices are marked as such in the Documents list and in the invoice header ("Auto-approved at 96%"), and one click on Send back to review puts any of them back in the queue.
Already have a pile waiting? The banner on Documents offers to apply the rule to them right now.
Email forwarding
Each PlateCost account gets a unique email address for invoice submission:
invoices+{your-account-id}@ingest.platecost.ioSet up email forwarding rules with your vendor to automatically route invoice emails to PlateCost. The system extracts invoices from email attachments (PDF, images) and inline content.