Bill Scanning (OCR)

Bill Scanning reads a utility bill for you. Upload the PDF (or a photo or scan) and Huckleberry extracts the vendor, account number, service period, and the itemized charges — then opens the manual entry form with everything filled in for your review. Instead of typing a bill line by line, you check it.

Find it under Analytics → Utility Data → Utility Entry, then the Upload a Bill (OCR) button next to Manual Entry.

Scanning a Bill

1. Open Utility Entry and choose Upload a Bill (OCR).
2. Upload the bill — PDF, PNG, JPEG, or TIFF, up to 10 MB. Multi-page PDFs are fine; all pages are read together.
3. Wait a few seconds while the bill is scanned.
4. The manual entry form opens with the extracted values filled in. Review, correct, and submit as usual. The uploaded file is kept with the entry as the bill image.

Where a name on the bill matches a vendor or service type you already use, the form fills in your existing name rather than the bill’s spelling, so your data stays consistent.

Reviewing What Was Read

Every extracted field carries a colored dot showing how confident the scan is:

• Green — read cleanly; a glance is usually enough.
• Amber — probably right; worth checking against the bill.
• Red — uncertain; check it carefully.

A banner at the top offers Review next field, which steps you through the fields that deserve attention in order. The original bill is displayed side-by-side with the form, so you can compare without switching windows. Once you edit a field, its marker clears — the value is yours, not the scan’s.

The location is always your choice. Huckleberry never assigns a bill to a site on its own. When the account’s history or the service address on the bill points to one of your sites, a suggestion appears under the Location field — one click applies it, but only you can make that call.

Good to Know

• PDFs with several statements — some utilities bundle multiple statements in one file. You’ll be asked which one to enter; upload the file again for the others.
• Duplicate warning — if a bill for the same account and period is already in Huckleberry, the form warns you before you submit a second copy.
• Charges that don’t add up — if the itemized lines don’t reach the bill total, the difference appears as a clearly labeled reconciliation line for you to resolve.

If a Bill Won’t Scan

• Password-protected or damaged files can’t be read — you’ll see a clear message. Print-to-PDF from the utility’s portal usually produces a readable copy.
• Poor-quality photos scan with lower confidence. A straight-on photo in good light, or the original PDF, works best.
• If a document doesn’t look like a utility bill, the form says so and asks you to check every field.
• Manual entry is always available as a fallback — a failed scan never blocks you from entering the bill by hand.