PDF Invoice Extractor

Turn PDF invoices into structured data — paste a URL, get clean JSON. No upload, no API key, no manual entry.

Built for accountants, bookkeepers, and expense managers who need reliable invoice data extraction at scale. Drop in one or a hundred PDF URLs and get back vendor, invoice number, dates, line items, tax, totals, and currency — all in a clean, analysis-ready JSON dataset.

Why this Actor?

Feature	PDF Invoice Extractor	Competitors
Input method	Direct URL (no upload needed)	Often requires file upload or base64
Processing engine	pdfplumber (reliable, fast text extraction)	pdfjs, OCR-only, or external AI APIs
Batch support	✅ Multiple URLs per run	Often single-document only
Line items	✅ Structured table extraction	Often raw text only
Tax/VAT	✅ Separate tax field extraction	Mixed with total
Confidence score	✅ Per-document extraction confidence	Rarely provided
Pricing	$0.05 start + $0.001/result	$0.01–$0.10 per document

The URL input advantage: No need to download, store, or upload PDFs. If you can link to an invoice, this Actor can parse it. Works with public URLs from supplier portals, email attachments, cloud storage — anywhere a PDF is accessible via HTTP(S).

What it does

1. Downloads PDF from the URL(s) you provide
2. Extracts text using pdfplumber (handles native PDFs, not just scanned images)
3. Parses structured fields: vendor, invoice number, date, subtotal, total, tax/VAT, currency
4. Extracts line items from PDF tables with description and amount
5. Scores confidence so you know which results need manual review
6. Outputs a clean JSON dataset ready for CSV export, accounting software, or further processing

Features

• 🔗 URL input only — no file upload, no storage needed
• 📊 Structured line items — table rows with description + amount
• 🧾 Tax/VAT extraction — separate tax field, not buried in total
• 🌍 Multi-currency — detects USD, EUR, GBP and explicit currency codes
• 📈 Confidence scoring — per-document extraction quality indicator
• ⚡ Batch processing — hundreds of URLs in a single run
• 🔒 No external APIs — runs entirely within Apify infrastructure
• 💰 Pay-per-event — $0.05 start fee + $0.001 per result item

Input

Field	Type	Required	Default	Description
pdfUrls	array[string]	Yes*	—	Direct URLs to PDF invoices or receipts.
pdfUrl	string	Yes*	—	Single PDF URL (convenience alternative to pdfUrls).
includeRawText	boolean	No	false	Include the full extracted text in the output (useful for debugging).

*Provide either pdfUrls (array) or pdfUrl (single string).

Input example

{
  "pdfUrls": [
    "https://example.com/inv-2024-001.pdf",
    "https://example.com/inv-2024-002.pdf",
    "https://example.com/receipt-march.pdf"
  ],
  "includeRawText": false
}

Output

Each result contains:

Field	Type	Description
vendor	string	Vendor/supplier name (first line or detected from "From"/"Seller" patterns)
invoiceNumber	string	Invoice or bill number
date	string	Invoice date (ISO or common formats)
subtotal	string	Net amount before tax
total	string	Total amount due
tax	string	Tax/VAT/GST amount
currency	string	Detected currency (USD, EUR, GBP, or explicit code)
lineItems	array	Structured line items with description, raw cells, and amount
confidence	number	Extraction confidence 0.0–1.0 (based on key fields found)
pages	integer	Number of PDF pages
sourceUrl	string	Original PDF URL
characterCount	integer	Total extracted characters
rawText	string	Full extracted text (only if includeRawText: true)

Output example

{
  "vendor": "Acme Supplies Inc.",
  "invoiceNumber": "INV-2024-001",
  "date": "2024-03-15",
  "subtotal": "1,250.00",
  "total": "1,375.00",
  "tax": "125.00",
  "currency": "USD",
  "lineItems": [
    {
      "description": "Widget A — 10 units",
      "raw": ["Widget A", "10", "50.00", "500.00"],
      "amount": "$500.00"
    },
    {
      "description": "Widget B — 5 units",
      "raw": ["Widget B", "5", "150.00", "750.00"],
      "amount": "$750.00"
    }
  ],
  "confidence": 1.0,
  "pages": 1,
  "sourceUrl": "https://example.com/inv-2024-001.pdf",
  "characterCount": 842
}

Usage

Via Apify CLI

apify call sootesting/pdf-invoice-extractor --input '{
  "pdfUrls": ["https://example.com/invoice.pdf"]
}'

Via cURL

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/sootesting~pdf-invoice-extractor/runs?token=YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"pdfUrls": ["https://example.com/invoice.pdf"]}'

Via Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("sootesting/pdf-invoice-extractor").call(run_input={
    "pdfUrls": ["https://example.com/invoice.pdf"]
})
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

Pricing

Event	Price	Description
Actor start	$0.05	Charged once per run (1 GB memory)
Per result	$0.001	Charged per successfully extracted document

Example: Processing 100 invoices costs $0.05 + $0.10 = $0.15 total.

Limitations

• Requires publicly accessible PDF URLs (no authentication-protected links)
• Works best with text-based PDFs (not scanned images — for scanned documents, use an OCR-based extractor)
• Very complex multi-page tables may have incomplete line item extraction
• Confidence score < 0.5 suggests manual review recommended

Related

• Invoice & Receipt Data Extractor — OCR-based, supports images
• Receipt & Invoice OCR — PDF + image to JSON/CSV
• PDF Table Extractor — table-focused extraction

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Built with pdfplumber for reliable text extraction. No external AI APIs, no per-token costs.