Document intake
Getting documents in by email or upload, what extraction produces, how detection classifies a document, and how to fix a bad extraction.
How-toFor Bookkeepers, Business owners, Firm staff
Getting documents in
- Forward the vendor's email to your intake address — the original, with its attachment.
- Upload files individually or in bulk from Document Intake.
- Drop a multi-page scan in; it can be split into separate documents.
- Attach directly to a transaction when the document belongs to something already recorded.
Detection and extraction
Each document is first classified — invoice, receipt, bank statement, contract, tax document, workpaper, correspondence, or other — and then extracted according to what it is. The intake list shows the detected type, the extraction status, and what was pulled out.
| Type | What extraction produces |
|---|---|
| Invoice | Vendor, invoice number, dates, totals, tax, and line detail — as a draft bill. |
| Receipt | Merchant, date, total, and tax — for matching against card activity. |
| Bank statement | The transaction list, for import into the account's feed. |
| Contract | Parties, dates, and terms, stored with the document. |
| Tax document | Filed to Document Storage with its period and type. |
| Other | Stored and searchable, with no structured extraction. |
When extraction struggles
| Symptom | Usual cause | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Status shows failed | Unreadable image — too dark, blurred, or heavily skewed. | Rescan or rephotograph. Enter by hand if the document is genuinely poor. |
| Wrong vendor | A remit-to address differs from the trading name, or the logo belongs to a parent company. | Correct it and create the vendor properly; subsequent documents improve. |
| Total wrong | A multi-page invoice with a subtotal on an earlier page. | Correct the total and confirm the lines foot to it. |
| Detected as the wrong type | A statement styled like an invoice, or vice versa. | Set the type manually and re-extract. |
| Duplicate flagged | The document was both emailed and uploaded. | Dismiss the duplicate — the flag is doing its job. |
Common questions
Yes. Bulk upload handles batches, and multi-document scans can be split. Extraction runs per document, so one bad page does not stop the rest.
It is stored and attached to whatever record is created from it, permanently. Opening a bill from three years ago shows the invoice it came from.
See alsoDocument storage and retention
Retention requirements are a tax and legal question rather than a software one. Ask your preparer — but a stored digital copy attached to the transaction is generally far easier to produce than a box.
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