Ask HN: How to calculate the sums of 230 invoice files of different formats?
I have 230 invoice files going back 18 years, a mix of PDF/XLS/DOC files and three different currencies.
I'm trying to find out what the invoice sums are, using an AI to go through all the files and do the math for me.
But for different reasons, neither Claude 3, ChatGPT (GPT-4o), Gemini 1.5, Microsoft Copilot GPT-4 nor Perplexity are able to do this.
The prompt: "Can I give you all my invoices (200+ PDF/XLS/DOC files), and can you then extract the total invoiced amount, breaking it down by year and by currency, and listing the totals per currency? If needed, here's a dropbox link for all the individual files: (URL)"
1) Is what I want possible with an AI right now?
2) If no AI can do it, what's the easiest way to do it on macOS with a manual or more automated method?
(I think maybe ChatGPT Plus with Wolfram could do it, and if it DEFINITELY can, I could pay for it and try.) It seems to me you could use a spreadsheet and do this by hand in an hour or two. Would you really trust any of these LLMs? I wouldn't. Try MS robotic automation (they may have a cheap / free account) https://powerautomate.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/process-invoi...
The only way you could rely on the the result would be to manually check each invoice, given all of these tools tendency to hallucinate. Might as well just manually collect the values at that point. using an AI to go through all the files and do the math for me.