Any Dext alternatives?

[eteb3]

Our accountant has told us Dext are putting up their prices 400%, so they will no longer be offering it as a freebie with their service. It was superb software, but we can't justify £20/month to get our own subs.

Anyone know any alternatives?

I'm wondering if there are public AIs that would do the same job?

 

[NicoJ]

Auto entry and Hubdoc are the ones that come to mind. What software do you use and what do you use Dext for?

 

[eteb3]

Thanks. Dext can read an upload of 30 PDF invoices and recognise payee, amount, date, etc. It’s the bypassing the data entry we use it for.

Interfaces with Xero I think (which I don’t love but our accountant does)

 

[GLAbusiness]

I use Dext to download invoices from some of the sites it supports. I also forward emailed invoices. Dext analyses them (as eteb3 says) and publishes them to FreeAgent.

 

[NicoJ]

Thanks. Dext can read an upload of 30 PDF invoices and recognise payee, amount, date, etc. It’s the bypassing the data entry we use it for.

Interfaces with Xero I think (which I don’t love but our accountant does)

Hundoc is free with the standard Xero package. It is not as good as Dext, I don't think you would expect it to be, so will take some adjusting to but it should do what you need.

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

How much would it cost to enter the data manually? More than £20?

Surely there are several options that work with Xero?

 

[MyAccountantOnline]

Thanks. Dext can read an upload of 30 PDF invoices and recognise payee, amount, date, etc. It’s the bypassing the data entry we use it for.

Interfaces with Xero I think (which I don’t love but our accountant does)

If it's only 30 invoices I'd have a discussion with your accountants and see if they can offer a quicker way to enter the transactions manually. It may be that you can automate some of the information or reduce the data you are entering at present to save time.

If you dont like Xero I'd also ask your accountants if they will/can recommend an alternative.

 

[eteb3]

How much would it cost to enter the data manually? More than £20?

Yes, but we're a charity with miserably small unrestricted funds. We probably can't risk spending even £20/mo on that. (Long story; we have plenty of restricted funds, but can't spend them on core costs)

 

[AndreasC]

HubDoc is free with Xero subscription

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

For those that are not involved in charities, unrestricted funds are those that can be spent on anything. Restricted funds are those (normally grants or donations) that must be spent on specific activities.

HOw many invoices do you have to upload a month?

 

[richardok]

Booksmate is a great option, fetches invoices, extracts then syncs to xero

 

[Daybooks]

Yes, but we're a charity with miserably small unrestricted funds. We probably can't risk spending even £20/mo on that. (Long story; we have plenty of restricted funds, but can't spend them on core costs)

You may have an abundance of restricted funds because the unrestricted funds are subsidising it.

The Charity Commission expects and it is logical that restricted funded projects contribute towards the overheads of the charity. By way of example Lottery bids expressly encourage bids using the ‘full cost recovery’ method - perhaps in part as a result of Dame Esther Rantzen’s insightful view that charities should not be judged on how little they spend on overheads.

Whether the cost is justifiable is up to the trustees as is the proper allocation of costs.

 

[Daybooks]

For those that are not involved in charities, unrestricted funds are those that can be spent on anything.

Only things that furthers its charitable purposes.

 

[Tables Force]

Booksmate is a great option, fetches invoices, extracts then syncs to xero

Oh... really?

You had to dig up a three year-old thread just to promote (presumably) your own software?

 

[EnterprisePro]

I might be able to help but I need to check. We've built our own invoice PDF parser in Python that can parse through specific provider invoices, convert the data into suitable data structures and then push to Xero via API. Its heavily integrated into our ecosystem, but I can see if we can open source part of it. We did all this to reduce reliance on third parties for a number of reasons.

 

[numbersrule]

This resurrected thread is a useful retro.

For Purchase Invoice / Bills data entry, one option available now is to upload PDFs or JPEGs to a freely available AI and prompt it to read the PDFs and / or JPEGs and convert them to individual lines on an Excel .CSV in a 'Xero bills' format for Import into Xero. In the scenario where you have 30 Bills, this can be quicker than adjusting/processing individually in Xero Files, formerly Hubdoc now superceded.

But Xero Files, the evolution from HubDoc is very good and probably all you need for anyone averse to devising suitable AI prompts for .CSV Imports.