Contara · Invoice automation
Contara collects invoices from your email or a folder, reads the data on each one, separates expenses from revenue, links receipts to invoices and shows it all on a dashboard. Nothing leaves your company.
On your own computer
1. Collect
From email or a folder, attachments included
2. Read
QR code first, then PDF text, then OCR
3. Direction
Expense or revenue, by your company's tax ID
4. Classify
Supplier or client, category and project
5. Validate
Tax ID, QR code and recipient checked
6. File and track
Archived by project, year and month
Nothing sent out
It only asks for your attention when something doesn't add up.
The problem
In email, on supplier portals, in folders on a computer and on paper. Some always get forgotten.
Tax IDs, dates, amounts, VAT and totals copied into a spreadsheet, one invoice at a time.
Invoices without the company's tax ID, or issued to a final consumer, may not allow VAT deduction. It's usually found out too late.
What's due this week? What have I been paid? Which receipt settles which invoice? The answer sits in five different places.
The solution
Before
After
It reads an invoice from the QR code printed on it, the same one the tax authority reads. That is the official source, so the numbers come from the document itself and not from a guess at the layout.
What it does
Your mailbox, read-only
Connects by IMAP in read-only mode. It never deletes messages or marks them as read.
An inbox folder
Drop in PDFs or saved emails (.eml) and the attachments are extracted automatically.
No duplicates, no noise
Resent copies are recognised by the file's fingerprint and the invoice's unique code. Logos and attachments that aren't invoices are ignored.
Safe to run any time
It processes only what is new. Running it again never damages what is already done.
QR code first
Tax IDs, dates, VAT amounts and rates, total, document type and withholding tax. Read even from small or imperfect QR codes.
Then the PDF text
Fills in what the QR code doesn't carry: due date, payment reference, "already paid" or direct debit.
OCR as a last resort
For scanned invoices, and only when some data is still missing.
Foreign invoices too
Software, hosting and advertising invoices in several languages, kept in their original currency.
A valid tax ID
The check digit is confirmed on every tax ID.
In your company's name
Without your tax ID the VAT may not be deductible, so it warns you the same day.
QR code and unique code
Invoices that should carry them and don't are flagged.
Totals that add up
The total is checked against the base, VAT and other taxes.
Cancelled and non-fiscal documents
Quotes, pro-formas, simulations, purchase orders, delivery notes and cancelled documents are set aside. Nothing is lost: they stay in a Discarded list and restore in one click.
Costs in the right project
From the subfolder an invoice is saved in, from a rule (supplier, category, sender or email subject), or picked by hand. The reason is always recorded.
Name a tax ID once
It applies to every invoice from that tax ID, past and future. Unidentified ones are shown first.
A self-organising archive
PDFs filed by project, year and month, with file names carrying date, entity and number. Move an invoice to another project and its PDF moves with it.
Export for your accountant
CSV (opens in Excel) or JSON with every tax field, without the discarded documents.
Expenses and revenue, side by side
Revenue is recognised by your tax ID with nothing to configure. Credit notes offset automatically.
Receipts linked on their own
Matched by the invoice number written on the receipt, or by amount when only one open invoice fits, with or without withholding tax. What's left, you link by hand.
Estimated result
Revenue (base) minus expenses (base): what the company is really earning, VAT excluded.
Review only the exceptions
Each document in review comes with the reason in plain language. Fixes you make by hand are never overwritten by a new reading.
The dashboard
Privacy and security
Who it's for
Any company that buys and sells on invoices and wants less manual data entry. It is currently set up for Portuguese invoicing standards, and can be adapted to others.
Small businesses
Fewer hours on paperwork, and no invoice forgotten in an inbox.
Agencies and studios
Costs charged to the right client project, with margin in view.
Companies that work with an accountant
A clean export instead of a shoebox of PDFs at month end.
Anyone who deducts VAT
Invoices missing the company's tax ID are caught the day they arrive.
If someone in your company still copies invoice data into a spreadsheet, this is the shape of the solution.
What's next
Issued invoices and receipts from any certified invoicing software, already linked to each other and without duplicating the PDFs.
Upload the statement (CSV, Excel or CAMT.053) from any bank, with a first-time wizard. No account access for third parties.
Each movement matched to the right invoice by reference, entity and amount, including grouped and partial payments, always showing why.
How we'd start
A short conversation
You tell me where invoices arrive today, who handles them and what your accountant needs.
Installation
I install Contara on a company machine. Your data stays on that machine.
Configuration
Your company's tax ID, mailbox, usual suppliers and client projects.
First import
We read your invoice history and go through the exceptions together.
Your turn
Invoices in an inbox, receipts to match, VAT to check? Let's talk about putting it on autopilot, on your own machine.
Start a conversation