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OCR Receipt Parsing with Python

OCR Receipt Parsing

OCR empowers developers to extract text from images. This powerful technology enables automated receipt parsing, revolutionizing expense tracking and financial management. In this tutorial, we’ll explore how to leverage OCR in Python to automatically parse receipts and streamline your financial workflows.

Why Use OCR for Receipt Parsing?

Manual data entry from paper receipts is tedious and error-prone. OCR technology eliminates this hassle by automatically extracting key information:

  • Store name and location
  • Purchase date and time
  • Individual item descriptions and prices
  • Subtotal, tax, and total amounts

By automating this process, you can:

  • Save time on expense reporting and bookkeeping
  • Improve accuracy of financial records
  • Gain insights into spending patterns
  • Simplify tax preparation

Let’s dive into the code to see how we can implement this powerful capability.

Setting Up the Environment

First, we’ll need to install the requests library to make API calls:

pip install requests

Next, we’ll import the necessary modules:

import json
import requests

Sending Receipts to the OCR API

We’ll use the Asprise OCR API to process our receipt images. Here’s how to send a request:

url = "https://ocr.asprise.com/api/v1/receipt"
image = "receipt.png"

response = requests.post(url,
    data={
        'api_key': 'TEST',
        'recognizer': 'auto',
        'ref_no': 'ocr_python_123'
    },
    files={
        'file': open(image, 'rb')
    })

This code sends a POST request to the API with our receipt image and configuration options.

Parsing the OCR Response

The API returns a JSON response containing the extracted receipt data. Let’s parse and analyze it:

data = json.loads(response.text)

receipt = data['receipts'][0]
items = receipt['items']

print(f"Your purchase at {receipt['merchant_name']}")

for item in items:
    print(f"{item['description']} - ${item['amount']}")

print("-" * 30)
print(f"Subtotal: ${receipt['subtotal']}")
print(f"Tax: ${receipt['tax']}")
print(f"Total: ${receipt['total']}")

This script extracts key information like merchant name, individual items, and totals from the parsed receipt data.

Enhancing the Output

To make our output more informative and user-friendly, we can add some formatting:

print(f"Your purchase at {receipt['merchant_name']}:")
print("-" * 30)

for item in items:
    print(f"{item['description']:<30} ${item['amount']:>7.2f}")

print("-" * 30)
print(f"{'Subtotal:':<30} ${receipt['subtotal']:>7.2f}")
print(f"{'Tax:':<30} ${receipt['tax']:>7.2f}")
print(f"{'Total:':<30} ${receipt['total']:>7.2f}")

This enhanced version aligns the item descriptions and prices, creating a more readable receipt summary.

Automating Multiple Receipts

To process multiple receipts, we can create a function and loop through a list of image files:

def parse_receipt(image_path):
    # ... (previous code to send request and parse response)
    return receipt

receipt_images = ["receipt1.png", "receipt2.jpg", "receipt3.png"]

for image in receipt_images:
    receipt_data = parse_receipt(image)
    # Process or store the receipt data as needed

This approach allows you to batch process multiple receipts efficiently.

Practical Applications

Now that we can automatically parse receipts, the possibilities are endless:

  1. Expense Tracking: Integrate with personal finance apps to categorize and track expenses.
  2. Business Accounting: Streamline bookkeeping by automatically logging business expenses.
  3. Tax Preparation: Easily compile receipts for tax deductions.
  4. Budget Analysis: Analyze spending patterns across different categories and merchants.

Conclusion

Automated receipt parsing with OCR transforms tedious financial tasks into streamlined processes. By leveraging Python and OCR technology, you can save time, improve accuracy, and gain valuable insights from your receipts.

Ready to take your OCR projects further? Check out this computer vision project repository for more inspiration and advanced techniques.

Remember, while OCR technology is powerful, it’s not perfect. Always verify important financial information and consult with accounting professionals for critical business processes.

Start automating your receipt parsing today and unlock the power of your financial data!


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