What is a Document Capture (OCR) in Business Central?

The process of extracting structured data from documents (invoices, receipts) using AI or OCR technology.

Document Capture refers to the automated extraction of structured data from business documents — invoices, receipts, delivery notes, purchase orders. Traditional document capture uses OCR (Optical Character Recognition) with templates to identify and extract text from specific locations on a document.

Traditional OCR requires a template for each vendor/document layout. When a new vendor sends an invoice with a different format, someone must create a new template — a process that can take hours. This makes traditional OCR expensive to maintain when dealing with many vendors.

AI-powered document capture (as used by Zentriq Document Capture) takes a fundamentally different approach. Instead of templates, AI understands the semantics of documents — it knows what a 'total', 'due date', or 'vendor' means regardless of where it appears on the page or what language it's in.

In Business Central, Zentriq Document Capture works through the Agent chat sidebar. Upload an invoice (PDF or photo), and AI extracts vendor, line items, amounts, tax, and dates. It auto-matches the vendor to BC records and creates a Purchase Invoice draft — ready for review and posting.

Related terms

• Purchase Invoice — A document recording a vendor's bill for goods or services received, used for accounts payable processing in Business Central.
• Vendor (Supplier) — A company or person from whom you purchase goods or services, represented as a Vendor Card in Business Central.
• Item Reference — A cross-reference in Business Central that maps external product codes (vendor SKUs, barcodes) to internal BC item numbers.

How Zentriq helps

Zentriq's AI tools automate many of the manual processes around document capture (ocr) in Business Central. Learn about the Zentriq Agent or try Zentriq PunchOut to see how AI simplifies procurement in BC.