Skavio Flow: reuse the workflow, not the invoice values
Skavio Flow lets a company save its extraction workflow and reuse the same custom fields across new documents. For a bookkeeping team handling recurring supplier invoices, the useful distinction is simple: keep the extraction setup consistent, but extract and review the values from each new source.
Define what each field means before saving the workflow
Consider an illustrative bookkeeping team preparing supplier invoices for a monthly accounting handoff. Rather than choosing extraction fields again for every intake, the team can establish a company invoice workflow and save it for reuse. The following are proposed fields and review criteria for this example—not built-in defaults or guarantees of automatic formatting. The definitions matter as much as the labels. A field called “total” is ambiguous unless the team agrees whether it means the invoice total including tax, a subtotal or an outstanding balance. The W3C tabular-data model describes a column as representing the same property across rows. That is a useful design principle here, not a claim of Skavio compliance with the standard: consistent field names should also carry consistent business meanings.
- Supplier name: the supplier identified on the invoice.
- Invoice number: the invoice identifier; check meaningful characters and leading zeros.
- Purchase-order reference: the reference stated in the source, not a substitute invoice number.
- Currency: the currency stated for the invoice amounts.
- Invoice total: the agreed definition of the total, distinguished from subtotals and balances.
Apply the same setup to the next document intake
When the next set of invoices arrives, the team reuses the saved company workflow instead of rebuilding its field selection. The reusable element is the request for information—not the previous supplier name, invoice number or amount. Flow supports invoices, orders, scans and text. Embedded PDF text is read locally; scanned documents use OCR before structured extraction prepares the chosen fields. Those different input paths can serve the same business requirement: extracting the information the team has defined for its invoice handoff. A saved workflow does not remove the need to inspect a new supplier layout or an unfamiliar document. It provides a repeatable extraction setup, not a guarantee that every document will contain every requested value.
Keep review attached to every new source
Flow provides source evidence and review warnings alongside extracted results. Use them to check whether a value is supported by the current document, particularly when several references or totals appear on the same page. In this example, the reviewer should distinguish the invoice number from the purchase-order reference, confirm the currency and compare the extracted total with the source. If the workflow also includes dates or line items, review those before downstream use. Where applicable, check how line-item amounts and tax relate to the invoice total. Missing or ambiguous information should remain an issue to resolve, not a reason to carry forward a value from an earlier invoice. Warnings are prompts for inspection; an unflagged result should not be treated as proof of correctness. Reusing the setup makes the request consistent. Review helps determine whether each new answer is usable.
Protect the field meanings during export
After review, Flow can export XLSX with document and line-item worksheets, as well as CSV and JSON. Choose the format for the receiving process: worksheets for a spreadsheet handoff, or a structured file for a compatible downstream import. Export availability does not imply built-in posting to accounting or ERP software. The receiving application can introduce errors even when extraction has been checked. Microsoft documents that Excel can remove leading zeros and alter long numeric identifiers. For a CSV handoff into Excel, import invoice numbers and other identifier columns as Text rather than allowing automatic numeric conversion. The practical goal is consistency across document intakes: the same questions, the same intended meanings and newly reviewed values. A saved workflow supports that consistency; careful export and import help preserve it.