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Building invoice flow without AI builder

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Posted on by SomeName

Hello,

I want to ask if anyone can help me extract data off PDFs without AI builder? Can someone give me a list of ways I can extract data off PDF and put them into Excel?

I want to be able to extract data off Invoices which can be in different format but still get the right information to the excel table. I however find AI builder really expensive. Are there any cheap alternatives? Perhaps some that give us first 100 processes free- something like that.

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v-xiaochen-msft Microsoft Employee on at

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Hi @SomeName ,

Desktop flow could also extract data form PDF (OCR).

In addition, some third-party connectors can meet your needs.

For example:

But it's not for free.

Some third-party APIs may also be able to achieve this .

Best Regards,

Wearsky

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SomeName 2 on at

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Hello @v-xiaochen-msft

First of all, thank you for reply.

I did look into Encodian, but I noticed it just converts the data in plain text. I want to be able to transfer the data from PDF to Excel. With Encodian, it won't be able to recognize where it should store data.

I guess something that has the ability of AI / machine learning that can then help me directly transfer the data into excel. I looked into DocParser, AI builder, Azure, however some cost a lot of money and some don't. I do not mind a little bit of cost, but I want to see if I can find a free version because that's always beneficial!

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takolota1 4,980 Moderator on at

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So I built this template that processes any document just using the less expensive image recognition AI Builder service & GPT.

It seems much less expensive with a much lower barrier to entry only requiring a premium Power Automate license with 5000 AI Builder credits per month & some on-going LLM / GPT costs…

https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Power-Automate-Cookbook/Extract-Data-From-PDFs-and-Images-With-GPT/td-p/2201345/page/4

If I’m looking at this right, this method should cost

Image recognition +.0017

GPT prompt & output +.007

Flow actions +.00375

So about $ .013 per page.

Less expensive than any of the other microsoft document/receipt/invoice processing options. And several of those take about 30 seconds to run.
And the 5000 AI Builder credits that come with the now $15 premium Power Automate license is enough for 1500 Image recognition pages. So you could probably process 500-750 documents per month with just 1 premium Power Automate license.

So it seems this method is faster, less expensive, easier to adjust, & requires less set-up than other standard AI builder set-ups.

Once the GPT actions are in general availability, I don’t know why I’d use any of the other services. 🤷‍

@SomeName

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