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From Paper to Collection: Importing Receipts and Other PDFs with an AI Assistant

nmcollector
6 days ago
6 min read

Receipts, appraisals, insurance schedules, dealer sheets, an old typed inventory, a page from a family cookbook: if you can scan it, an AI chat assistant such as ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini or Claude can read it and write the details into a file that NM Collector CP imports. One receipt with five items on it becomes five items in your collection.


This post covers the AI part: what to watch for with privacy, how to scan, what to ask for, and how to get pictures out of a scanned page. Making the blank import file, filling in a CSV file and running the import are explained in Importing Items into NM Collector CP: The Basics; this post points to it where they come in.


What you need: NM Collector CP for Windows, Mac or Linux, version 2.3.2 or later, and an AI chat assistant that accepts file uploads (PDF or picture). Most do, though some free plans limit uploads.


First, privacy: what the AI sees


What you give the AI leaves your computer. A PDF or photo you upload is sent to the company that runs the AI and processed on its computers. Most services keep your conversations, including the files, in your chat history until you delete them. Depending on the service and your account settings, conversations may also be reviewed by the company’s staff or used to train future AI models. Each service has privacy settings where you can see and change this.


So treat uploading a document like emailing it to a company. A receipt can carry your name, address, card number and what you bought and where. An appraisal says what you own and what it’s worth. Before you scan, cover or fold back anything you don’t want to share: card numbers, account numbers, your address, signatures. Or skip the upload and type just the item details into the chat.


Your collections stay on your computer. NM Collector CP has no connection to any AI and sends nothing to one. The AI sees only what you upload or paste. One thing to look at before you paste the column guide (Step 1): it lists the values already in your drop-down lists, which can include names of people and businesses or serial numbers you have entered. Delete any you’d rather not share.


Step 1: Make a blank import file and choose your columns


Select the collection and choose File > Export > Blank Import File, as described in The Basics. Then, from the heading row, keep only the columns the document can fill.


For a receipt going into the Home and Legacy Inventory collection, that might be:


ID > Location,ID > Major Category,ID > Item,ID > Brand,ID > Model,ID > Serial Number,ID > Include In Reports?,Desc > Receipt on File?,Desc > Notes,Rec > Business,Rec > City,Rec > State,Rec > Date,Rec > Amount,Picture file(s)

The Rec tab is where a purchase is recorded: who you bought from, when, and what you paid.


Step 2: Scan the document


A flatbed scanner, a printer’s scan button, or a phone scanning app all work. Save it as a PDF, or as a JPG if you also want the scan itself attached to the items (Step 4). Make it straight, flat and readable: if you can’t read a digit on screen, the AI can’t either.


Step 3: Ask the AI


Start a new chat, attach the scan with the chat’s attach (paperclip or +) button, and paste a request. This one is for the receipt:


Read the attached receipt.
If you can't read it, say so and stop. Don't guess at any value you can't read clearly; leave it empty.

Make a CSV file I can import into my Home and Legacy Inventory collection. Use exactly this heading row, in this order:
ID > Location,ID > Major Category,ID > Item,ID > Brand,ID > Model,ID > Serial Number,ID > Include In Reports?,Desc > Receipt on File?,Desc > Notes,Rec > Business,Rec > City,Rec > State,Rec > Date,Rec > Amount,Picture file(s)

Then one row for each item bought. Skip the lines for tax, shipping and discounts.

* ID > Location: Kitchen
* ID > Major Category: exactly one of: Appliances; Art & Decor; Books; Cameras / Photo; Clothing; Collectibles; Computers; Documents; Electronics; Furniture; Jewelry; Kitchenware; Lawn & Garden; Linens; Media (CDs DVDs Games); Medical Equipment; Musical Instruments; Other; Sporting Goods; Tools; Toys & Games; Vehicles
* ID > Item: a short name for the item, for example "Stand Mixer".
* ID > Brand, ID > Model, ID > Serial Number: as printed on the receipt.
* ID > Include In Reports?: yes
* Desc > Receipt on File?: yes
* Desc > Notes: the item's full description as printed on the receipt.
* Rec > Business: the store's name. Rec > City and Rec > State: the store's city and state.
* Rec > Date: the purchase date, written as MM/DD/YYYY.
* Rec > Amount: the price paid for that item, a number with no currency sign.
* Picture file(s): receipt.jpg

CSV rules: comma separated; copy the heading row exactly as written, including the ">" signs; put any value that contains a comma, a quote or a line break in double quotes, and double any quote inside it. Don't add any columns.
Give me the result as a downloadable file named import.csv. If you can't make a file, put the CSV in a code block so I can copy it into a text file and save it as import.csv.

Change Kitchen to the room the items are in; the AI can’t know it. The categories are the ones the collection starts with; if you’ve changed yours, copy them from your column guide.


Every request follows the same pattern, whatever the document:


  • “If you can’t read it, say so and stop.” Without this, an AI may fill gaps with something that looks right but isn’t.

  • The heading row, exactly. This lets the import match every column on its own.

  • One row for each item, and which lines to skip.

  • A rule for each column: which drop-down values to choose from (copy them from the column guide), how dates and amounts are written, what goes in a notes field. The more exact the rules, the less you fix afterwards.

  • The CSV rules and the last line about the file, word for word.


Step 4: Pictures from the document


The import uses picture files saved beside the CSV file; it doesn’t download anything. There are three ways to get pictures from a scan:


  • The scan itself. Save the scan as receipt.jpg in the import folder, and the Picture file(s): receipt.jpg rule attaches it to every item on the receipt.

  • Photos in the document. An appraisal or dealer sheet often has a photo of each piece. Some AI assistants can take those photos out of the PDF and give them to you as picture files. Ask for it in the request, for example: Picture file(s): the file name of this item’s photo, such as “item1.jpg”. Also give me each photo from the document as a downloadable JPG file with that name. Download them into the import folder.

  • Crop them yourself. If your AI can’t, open the scan in any picture editor, crop each photo and save it into the import folder under the name in the file.


Step 5: Save the answer and import


Save the AI’s file into your import folder, beside the pictures. If it gave you a code block instead of a file, The Basics shows how to save text as a CSV file. Then import it with File > Import > Items From External Sources, check the preview, and click Import, as The Basics describes.


Step 6: Check against the paper


Open the new items and compare them with the document. AI assistants read well, but not perfectly: a faded receipt, handwriting or a smudged digit can come out wrong, and a value you’ll rely on for insurance is worth checking. If the import isn’t right, click Undo This Import on the report (it stays open while you look), fix the file or the request, and import again.


Tips


  • Several pages or several receipts. Attach them all and ask for one row per item across all of them. Add a column such as Rec > Business so you can tell where each came from.

  • Handwriting. Ask the AI to leave a value empty rather than guess, and check those items first.

  • Appraisals. Home and Legacy Inventory has Appraised By, Date Appraised and Appraised Value on its Desc tab; other collections have their own value fields. Keep those columns and write a rule for each.

  • Cookbook pages. A scanned recipe works the same way. The rules for a recipe are in Saving a Recipe from the Web into Your Recipes Collection; use them with “the attached page” in place of the web address.

  • More examples are in More Ways to Fill a Collection with an Import.


 
 
 

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