Invoice Organizer

Table of Contents

• Keywords
• Quick Start
• Core Workflows
• Tools
• Reference Guides
• Templates
• Best Practices

Keywords

Quick Start

Categorize 200 Receipts in 1 Minute

1. Export receipts from your bank or expense tool as a CSV with columns:

   date,vendor,description,amount,currency

2. Run:
   bash

   python scripts/invoice_categorizer.py receipts.csv

3. Review the categorized output and override anything wrong via the rules file
4. Export the monthly summary for handoff to your accountant

Core Workflows

Workflow 1: Monthly Bookkeeping

1. Export receipts as CSV from your bank, card, or expense tool
2. Run:

   python scripts/invoice_categorizer.py receipts.csv

3. Review the uncategorized bucket — these need rules added or manual override
4. Add rules to

   assets/category_rules.json

   for any recurring vendors
5. Re-run; uncategorized count should drop each month as the rules file grows
6. Drop the monthly summary into

   assets/monthly_summary_template.md

Workflow 2: Duplicate Detection

1. Run:

   python scripts/invoice_categorizer.py receipts.csv --json

2. Inspect the

   duplicates_suspected

   list
3. Confirm whether each is a true duplicate (same charge entered twice) or a coincidence (same amount on different days at different vendors)
4. Remove confirmed duplicates from the source CSV; re-run

Workflow 3: Vendor Spend Review

1. Run categorizer for the last 3-6 months separately
2. Compare per-vendor totals month-over-month
3. Flag any vendor where total grew > 25% with no obvious business reason
4. Either renegotiate, switch, or accept; revisit quarterly

Tools

invoice_categorizer.py

• Categorizes each row by vendor + description against rules in

  assets/category_rules.json

  (extensible)
• Aggregates totals per category and per vendor
• Detects likely duplicates (same vendor + amount within 3 days)
• Flags uncategorized items for manual review

# Human-readable summary
python scripts/invoice_categorizer.py receipts.csv

# JSON for programmatic use
python scripts/invoice_categorizer.py receipts.csv --json

# Use a custom rules file
python scripts/invoice_categorizer.py receipts.csv --rules my-rules.json

date, vendor, description, amount

YYYY-MM-DD

MM/DD/YYYY

DD/MM/YYYY

Reference Guides

• references/expense_categorization_guide.md

  — Standard expense categories, common tax buckets (US Schedule C, UK self-employment, generic), how to map vendors to categories

Templates

• assets/category_rules.json

  — Default rules; extend with your recurring vendors

• assets/monthly_summary_template.md

  — Format for handing the monthly summary to an accountant

Best Practices

• Categorize monthly, not annually. Annual catch-up bookkeeping always misses receipts and produces guess-categorization.
• Grow the rules file over time. First month: 30% uncategorized. Sixth month: < 5%. The compounding return on rule-writing is high.
• Keep evidence. Categorization is bookkeeping; receipts (PDFs, photos) are tax evidence. Store separately from this script's output.
• Don't trust auto-categorization for tax filing. Use it for prep; have a human (you or your accountant) sign off before filing.
• Currency consistency. If you have multi-currency receipts, convert at month-end FX rate before this script; it does not handle FX.

Integration Points

• Pairs with

  finance/

  skills for budgeting and forecasting
• Feeds into

  c-level-advisor/cs-cfo-advisor

  cash-flow workflows
• Used by solo-founder persona for monthly close