Q: Hello there.
Does the app understand swedish reciepts? Is that taken care of by the AI? Also how can I use this together with lets say a swedish tax program such as Hogia or Visma?
Antti_SparkReceipt
May 15, 2024A: Hi,
Yes, it understands Swedish receipts. The AI is assisted by ChatGPT and it reads almost all languages very well. Including my mother tongue, Finnish. The bottleneck is more often the OCR process, which for receipts is difficult, since they can be crumbled, faded and twisted. Especially so if the process prioritizes speed like this app.
Hogia is a program unknown to me, but I know Visma since it is very prominent in Finland too. I actually am quite unsure if I want to "go there", since that is a very established accounting ecosystem and I have no hopes of competing on that front directly. Do you use some of these programs? Could the issues be e.g. alleviated by Excel imports into those systems? For me, my accountant handles everything after I submit the receipts to him via this app. I should probably ask how he does it.
Thanks,
Antti
Erik_RosalesPLUSThe first reciept I scanned it lost the total amount + didnt find the tax. Is there a do's and dont's? Would love to get tis to work : )
Hi,
Sorry to hear. It is actually rare to miss the total, but taxes can be difficult in some scenarios. This includes multitier VAT systems e.g. in Sweden and Finland. They are often represented in a tightly packed table with lots and lots of numbers and percentages. Add some minor OCR errors in to the mix and the AI can have a quite hard time deciphering it all.
Here are some tips for better results:
- Generally, PDF receipts work best, since they are not subject to OCR.
- If you need to scan paper receipts, then the mobile app has a bit more powerful OCR than the web application.
- Results can improve dramatically if the cropping is done well and the receipt is already straight and lines are level. These are accounted for in the preprocessing step, but it is still a step prone to small errors.
You can send any problematic receipts to sparkreceipt@valorbyte.com and I will add them to the test bench that is used to improve the results. Then I can see exactly where and why it stumbles.
Thank you,
Antti