Agile Sourcing Partners: PDF Invoice Automation Pipeline

The business challenge

Invoices arrived as PDF documents, not structured business data. Someone had to receive, open, read, extract, validate, enter, store and publish every invoice before analytics or downstream processes could begin. The real problem was larger than invoice processing: it was a data extraction and workflow automation problem.

The solution

Z&C designed an automated workflow using Python, Power Automate, SharePoint and database integration, converting PDF invoices into structured, validated information for downstream use — from ingestion and extraction to rule validation, storage and financial reporting.

• Python
• Power Automate
• SharePoint
• Power BI

Implementation

• Ingestion pipeline

  PDF invoices are received and ingested automatically into the pipeline, removing the manual intake step.

• Document extraction

  Python pulls fields from unstructured PDFs and converts them into structured data.

• Validation against business rules

  Extracted fields become structured JSON validated against business rules before anything reaches the database.

• Database & document management

  Validated data is stored in the database while SharePoint manages documents, workflow state and collaboration.

• Analytics consumption

  Power BI consumes the structured data for financial reporting.

Business results

• Cycle time collapsed

  A process that took approximately two weeks was reduced to hours, depending on volume and cycle.

• Manual effort removed

  Document to automated extraction, validation, structured data and reporting — without manual re-entry.

• Reusable pattern

  Document → Data → Workflow → Analytics: a repeatable blueprint applicable to any document-heavy process.