Reading an invoice with OCR does not mean approving it
Moving invoice data into an application looks like an ideal task to automate. But recognising an amount does not mean the system interpreted it correctly, or that the invoice itself is valid. Before connecting extraction to an action, separate reading the document from deciding to accept it.
Confidence is a signal, not an approval
Extraction systems can return confidence scores. Microsoft Document Intelligence explains that these scores estimate the certainty of a prediction and that not every field includes one. It also distinguishes confidence in reading words from confidence in the extracted field.
Reading a number correctly therefore does not guarantee that it belongs to the right total. A high score does not establish that the supplier exists, that there is no duplicate or that payment has been authorised. Those are separate checks.
Decide what needs review
Identify fields that can cause problems when wrong: the invoice number, currency, total or recipient details. Define checks suited to your process and send cases with missing, inconsistent or uncertain data for additional review. Do not fill an unknown field with a guess just to keep the application moving.
There is no universal confidence threshold that makes every workflow safe. Test it with representative documents, including different layouts, blurry scans and invoices with several pages. Compare the extracted results with a check against the original document and examine which mistakes your rules would let through.
Start without triggering external actions
An initial phase can simply prepare a draft of the data. Keep a reference to the original document to check fields without searching for it again. Restrict access and decide how long documents and results need to be kept.
When a supplier changes its layout, review the behaviour again. Tests on one set of documents do not prove that every future invoice will be read correctly. Automating transcription can remove work; approving documents or ordering payments is a different decision, with different permissions and checks.