Clearline Books
Supplier invoice capture and AP automation, without changing how suppliers send invoices
Supplier invoices arrive by WhatsApp, email or upload. Clearline reads them, checks them and posts approved bills as drafts into your accounting software.
- Status
- Early access
- Built for
- Small and mid-sized businesses, finance and AP teams, and bookkeepers who manage books for clients.
- Category
- Accounts payable automation
The problem
Suppliers send invoices however they like. A PDF attached to an email, a photo on WhatsApp, a scan from a phone. Someone on the finance team then types each one into the accounting system.
The typing is only part of the job. The slow part is the checking: is this a duplicate, is it a proforma rather than a tax invoice, does it match a purchase order, did the supplier's bank details just change?
Most accounts payable tools fix this by asking suppliers to change: use a portal, send to a fixed address, follow a format. Suppliers rarely do. We built Clearline so nothing changes on the supplier side.
How it works
- 01
Capture
Invoices come in by WhatsApp, by forwarding from approved company email addresses, or by upload. Clearline never needs access to your inbox.
- 02
Extract
Clearline reads the invoice without supplier-specific templates, in any layout or language. Every field gets its own confidence score, and uncertain fields are flagged for a person to check.
- 03
Check
Each document is classified as a tax invoice, proforma, credit note or debit note. Clearline matches PO numbers to open purchase orders, flags a repeated invoice number with a different amount, flags changed supplier bank details and validates tax IDs and VAT.
- 04
Approve and post
Approved bills are posted as drafts to your accounting software, each linked back to its original source, with every approval and change recorded. Rejections get a reply drafted in the supplier's original email thread.
What it does
- Capture from WhatsApp, email forwarding and uploads
- Template-free extraction with per-field confidence
- Document type detection: tax invoice, proforma, credit note, debit note
- Purchase order matching
- Duplicate detection on invoice number and amount
- Changed bank detail alerts, held for review rather than blocked
- Tax ID and VAT validation under local rules
- Draft bills in Xero, QuickBooks, Zoho Books, Odoo, Sage, SAP Business One, NetSuite and MYOB
- Full audit trail with a link from every bill to its source
How we built it
Confidence per field, not per document
A single confidence score for a whole invoice is useless to a reviewer: it says something might be wrong, not what. Clearline scores every field on its own, so the person approving a bill looks at the two fields that need attention instead of re-reading the whole invoice.
Email in, without inbox access
Connecting to a company mailbox is the fastest way to lose a finance team's trust. Each company gets its own forwarding address, and Clearline only accepts mail from addresses the company has approved. No OAuth, no reading anything it wasn't sent.
One bill model, many accounting systems
Extraction produces one internal bill format. Each accounting system has its own connector that maps that format to the system's API, for example XML-RPC for Odoo and the REST API for Zoho Books. Adding a new system means writing a connector, not touching extraction.
Flag, don't block
Changed bank details are one of the most common signs of invoice fraud, but most changes are legitimate. Blocking the invoice stops payments for a real supplier. Clearline lets the bill continue and puts the change in front of a person before it can be paid.
Clearline Books: common questions
Do suppliers need to change how they send invoices?
No. Suppliers keep sending invoices the way they already do, by email, WhatsApp or as a file. Clearline handles the variety on its side.
Which accounting systems does Clearline work with?
Xero, QuickBooks, Zoho Books, Odoo, Sage, SAP Business One, NetSuite and MYOB. Approved bills are posted as drafts, so nothing reaches your books without a person approving it.
Does Clearline need access to our email inbox?
No. You forward invoices to a Clearline address, and it only accepts mail from company addresses you approve.
How do we get access?
Clearline is onboarding a small number of businesses at a time. Book a demo at clearlinebooks.net.