invoice-ocr

What This Skill Does

The invoice-ocr skill is a powerful automation tool for OpenClaw designed to streamline financial administrative tasks. It leverages Alibaba Cloud's OCR (Optical Character Recognition) engine to automatically extract structured data from various types of invoices, receipts, and financial documents. Whether you are dealing with VAT invoices, train tickets, taxi receipts, or flight itineraries, this skill parses the visual information and exports the key fields into a structured Excel (.xlsx) file. This eliminates the need for manual data entry, reduces human error in expense reports, and organizes your financial paperwork into a searchable, analytical format.

Installation

To integrate this skill, first ensure your system has the necessary Python environment. Run the command clawhub install openclaw/skills/skills/1054570699/invoice-recognize in your terminal. After installation, you must install the Excel processing library: pip install openpyxl. Note that this skill requires a valid Alibaba Cloud account with the 'Invoice Recognition' service enabled. Before initial execution, you must run python scripts/recognize_invoices.py --config to input your AccessKey ID and AccessKey Secret. This configuration is stored securely and enables the agent to authenticate with the cloud API.

Use Cases

• Corporate Expense Management: HR or finance departments can batch-process hundreds of employee receipts to generate a monthly reimbursement report.
• Tax Compliance: Bookkeepers can quickly digitize and organize paper tax invoices to prepare for audits.
• Personal Finance: Individuals can use this to keep track of travel expenses, including plane tickets, train tickets, and meal receipts, ensuring all spending is accounted for in a single spreadsheet.
• Business Automation: Automating the ingestion of supplier invoices directly into Excel to facilitate easier bookkeeping without manual keying.

Example Prompts

1. "OpenClaw, please scan the invoices in my './downloads/receipts' folder and compile them into a monthly report Excel file."
2. "I have a folder of taxi and hotel invoices, can you run the invoice-ocr tool to organize these for my expense submission?"
3. "Hey, use the invoice recognition skill on the files in the project folder and make sure to list the total tax amounts."

Tips & Limitations

To ensure the best results, use high-resolution images (at least 500px in width). The skill supports common formats including PDF, OFD, and images (JPG, PNG, TIFF). Keep in mind that the Alibaba Cloud OCR service operates on a pay-per-use model; monitor your cloud console to manage API costs. The system expects readable documents; severely crumpled or extremely blurred images may result in low confidence scores. Always verify the exported Excel data against the physical receipts for high-stakes financial documentation. If the system fails to read a file, ensure your API keys are active and that the file format is supported.