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How to check an AI-made invoice spreadsheet
AI tools can turn a pile of invoices and receipts into a spreadsheet in minutes. Often it’s right. When it’s wrong, it looks exactly the same. Here is how to check it, in the order that catches the most mistakes for the least effort.
The short version. Don’t ask the AI whether it got it right. Check the spreadsheet against the documents: the figures, the totals, the pages and the signs. Each check below catches a different kind of mistake. For why these mistakes happen, and four more, see Ten mistakes AI makes reading invoices and documents.
1. The biggest figures are really on the page
Pick the largest amounts in the spreadsheet and find each one on its invoice. A figure you can’t find on the page was made up or misread. Do this one first: it catches the mistakes that every other check can miss.
2. Each invoice adds up to its printed total
For each invoice, add the lines to get the subtotal, then add tax, shipping and fees and take off any discount. You should land on the total printed on the invoice, to the cent. If you don’t, a line is missing, doubled or misread.
One warning: an invoice that adds up can still be wrong, because AI may have made up a figure to make it add up. That’s why check 1 comes first.
3. Every page is there
Count the pages you sent and the invoices on them. Every page should be in the spreadsheet, or have a reason it isn’t. A missing photo or second page is the most common way a total ends up short.
4. Discounts, credits and deposits are taken off
Look at every discount, credit note and deposit. Each should reduce what’s owed. If one was added instead, the total moves by twice its amount.
5. Every total adds up all its rows
Click each total and look at what its formula adds. It should cover every row above it, in the right column. A range that stops one row short, or adds the wrong column, gives a total that looks right and isn’t.
6. No invoice is counted twice, or merged
Sort by vendor, invoice number and total, and look for the same invoice twice. Then check that a PDF with several invoices in it gives you one row for each.
A quick checklist
- The biggest figures are on the page.
- Each invoice adds up to its printed total.
- Every page is in the spreadsheet, or has a reason it isn’t.
- Discounts, credits and deposits are taken off.
- Every total adds up all its rows.
- No invoice is counted twice, or merged.