Recognised fields: which fields does the IDR recognise?

The IDR (Intelligent Document Recogniser) automatically recognises the key data on a PDF invoice and converts it into structured fields in the e-invoice. Which fields are recognised depends on your subscription and configuration.

Standard recognised fields

For every PDF conversion, the following fields are recognised automatically:

Field

Details

Supplier

Name, address, Chamber of Commerce number, VAT number. The supplier is identified through the eConnect party database (Purple Pages), not based on what appears on the PDF.

Buyer

Name and address as stated on the invoice. Included in an XML extension, not as primary identification.

Invoice number

Unique invoice number

Invoice date

Date of the invoice

Due date

Payment term (if stated)

Amounts

Subtotal, VAT amount and total amount

VAT rate

Percentage and category (standard, reverse charge, exempt)

IBAN

Supplier bank account

Payment reference

Structured reference (if present)

Currency

Currency of the invoice

Professional fields

With the Professional subscription, additional fields are recognised:

Field

Details

Purchase order number

The most commonly used reference. The IDR recognises this field automatically.

Contract number

Reference number of the underlying contract

Project number

Reference number of the project

Buyer reference

Receiver reference field, configurable per Chamber of Commerce, OIN or VAT number

G-account IBAN

Recognition of G-account bank numbers (identifiable by the "099" series)

Structured payment references

Belgian OGM, Norwegian KID number, Swiss QR code

VAT base amounts (reverse charge)

Recognises the original VAT rate on reverse-charged invoices and assigns the correct VAT code (AE, K or G). Relevant for construction and housing associations.

Date recognition by country

The IDR recognises dates on PDF invoices and converts them to the standard UBL date format (YYYY-MM-DD). Because date notations differ by country, the IDR uses the supplier country to interpret ambiguous dates:

United States: MDY (month-day-year). The date 03/11 is interpreted as 11 March.
All other countries: DMY (day-month-year). The date 03/11 is interpreted as 3 November.

If automatic country detection is not enough, a specific hint for the date format can be added per supplier through the hint mechanism.

Tip: wrongly interpreted dates (for example 03/11 as 11 March instead of 3 November) are almost always a recognition issue, not a platform issue. The platform always displays the date as it appears in the UBL.

IBAN validation

With the Professional subscription, the recognised IBAN is compared against the verification store: a database of previously manually validated IBAN numbers per supplier. If the IBAN on the invoice differs from what was verified earlier, this is flagged. This helps detect ghost invoices or changed bank details.

Note: according to European standard EN16931, the IBAN on an invoice is primarily for supplier identification, not as a payment instruction. A changed IBAN must always be validated in your financial system's master data before payment is made.

Configurable references (custom)

In addition to standard references (order number, contract number, project number), other references can be configured specifically per supplier. Think budget codes, budget holder codes or internal references. This is custom work set up on a strip card basis.

Configurable reference recognition uses a three-layer mechanism:

Regex: format validation to ensure the extracted reference exactly matches the expected format
Outlier detection: statistical deviation detection that catches unlikely values
Hints: automatically generated training data based on corrections by the QC team

Tip: the purchase order number is the most commonly used reference and is stated on the invoice by most suppliers. If a supplier cannot fill a certain reference field in their software, there is little point asking for it. In that case, use the purchase order number as the primary reference.

Invoice lines (line recognition)

With line recognition, individual invoice lines are also recognised: description, unit price, quantity, line amount and reference fields per line. This is a separate feature you can activate yourself via My Environment.

Want to know how recognition works technically? Read How does Scan & Recognise (IDR/OCR) work?.

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