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Billie, the smart invoice assistant
p/billie-the-smart-invoice-assistantSupercharge your invoice archive flow on macOS
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Frederik Jacques

Billie - Supercharge your invoice archive flow on macOS

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Stop wasting time renaming & moving invoices on your system. Through the power of machine learning and a little touch of magic, Billie is your personal invoice assistant on macOS. It will automatically rename & move your files, or mail it to your accountant.

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Frederik Jacques
Maker
📌
Hi there PH! 👋 My name is Frederik, the developer of Billie - the smart invoice assistant for macOS. For the last 3 months, I've been working on Billie with an amazing group of beta testers who provided me with valuable feedback. Today I'm really excited to finally share Billie with all of you! Meet Billie, the smart invoice assistant for macOS! 🙋🏼‍♂️ So why and ... what exactly does it do? That’s a great question! I’ve been freelancing for over 15 years now, and every quarter my accountant starts begging for my invoices.
So my workflow went like this 1. Go through my mails looking for invoices 2. Drag the invoice to my desktop 3. Open it with Quicklook to see a) what company is it, and b) what was the invoice date 4. Press Enter to rename the file like 2023-02-12_company-name.pdf 5. Take that invoice, and drag it to my invoices folder … and all of this, for 15 years, every quarter, again and again
 So I embarked on a mission to automate this entire flow.
 1. Detect which company sent the invoice (of course these days … with a little bit of Machine Learning). 2. Automatically generate a filename, based on a pattern you can fully customise. 3. Execute a serie of customisable actions like ‘move to directory’, or ‘e-mail the invoice’
. 🧙🏼 Sounds easy, no? It sounds easy indeed, but invoices are a beast on its own. 
 Not a single invoice in the world is the same, so it takes quite some tricks to get great results! ⚙️ Does it only move files? 
No, there is the concept of “Destination Groups” which let you group a series of actions to execute.
 For example, you can create a group for "personal" and "work" invoices, and attach different actions to each group. A group of actions can be “move the invoice to this folder, automatically sort it in a folder based on the fiscal quarter and mail the invoice to my accountant as well”. 🤩 Sounds great, can I try it before I buy? 
Yes, you can! Billie allows you to process 5 invoices per month for free, but also comes with a free 2-week trial which gives you enough time to try out all features.
 If it doesn’t fit your needs, you can cancel the trial with the click of a button. 
🚀 So, what’s coming up? 
Watch & automatically process selected folders, potentially an iPhone app. 
But it might be easier to just look at the public roadmap (https://feedback.getbillie.app/r...) and see what features are in the pipeline.
You can even suggest features, if you feel something is missing and would add great value! 💙 Let me know what you think!
 Billie originated as a hobby project just for myself, but due to the big amount of positive reactions on LinkedIn after demoing it, I’ve put a lot of time and effort in Billie to make it a delightful experience.
I would love to hear from you, and get your thoughts on how I could improve Billie even more!
 Feel free to leave a comment below or reach out via email (support@getbillie.app)! Frederik
Anna Filou
💡 Bright idea
I love the design! And if this works as described, you're a HERO for admin workers everywhere! 😍 So if I have two companies (or rather, two VAT numbers), can Billie automatically detect which company/VAT number the invoice concerns and move it to the appropriate folder? ?makers
Frederik Jacques
Maker
@anna_0x Hi Anna, thanks for your kind words! Yes, you can add multiple VAT numbers that need to be excluded if you own multiple companies. In an upcoming version you will also be able to link destination groups based on VAT number.
Anna Filou
@frederik_jacques1 I didn't quite catch that. Can I throw a bunch of invoices at Billie and have it discern which is for which of my companies, based on the VAT number? 😊 I don't want to "exclude" any company.
Frederik Jacques
Maker
@anna_0x Oh sorry, I misunderstood the question :) At the moment you can do the following: 1. Underneath Settings > VAT numbers, add the 2 VAT numbers of your own companies. 2. Create 2 destination groups: One for company A (move invoice to folder A) and one for company B (move invoice to folder B) When you process an invoice that Billie hasn't seen before, you can select which destination group should be executed for that specific supplier. Billie will remember it the next time it sees an invoice from this supplier and automatically select that destination group. However if you receive an invoice from a supplier that has sent an invoice to both of your companies (for example say both of your companies receive invoices from Adobe), it will select the destination group that you last used. I will fix this in an upcoming version of Billie, where you will be able to link a destination group specifically to one of your VAT numbers! Good find! Regards, Frederik
Anna Filou
@frederik_jacques1 that'll be amazing! I would really really appreciate it if you could let me know after you add that feature. 🙏
Frederik Jacques
Maker
@anna_0x no problem. I will let you know when it's implemented!
Sumesh Tomar
As someone who hates doing administrative work, I'm always on the lookout for tools that can make my life easier. Billie definitely fits the bill, and I'm excited to give it a try!
Josselin Colletta
Love this. Is the machine learning made on-device?
Frederik Jacques
Maker
@josselinco There are quite a few steps that Billie takes to analyse the invoice and predict which company has sent the invoice. 8 of those steps are offline and on-device only. If all those fail (which happens when the invoice has essential missing data or a very weird layout), then the invoice is fed into an online model which also tries to predict the name, address, vat number, email address of the supplier. That data is then stored again locally a sqlite database on your device, and the next time it will take this meta data into account to try to predict it offline. No worries however, the invoice that is fed into the model on my servers is immediately removed after the result has been predicted.
Aron Halfdan
Congrats on shipping, wishing you the best. I tried the public beta a few weeks back and I just loved the skeuomorphism with the little receipt popping out of the notch of my macbook! I do have a question regarding the technicals: I noticed that I get mostly (like 9 out of 10) positive results when processing "real" invoices, but with little receipts it seems to be harder to get a good result. Is there a particular reason for this? Anyways, I'm happy with it and will subscribe!
Frederik Jacques
Maker
@aron_halfdan Hi Aron, first thank you for testing! Billie is currently trained with "real" invoices in most languages (non-arabic/chinese), better support for receipts is certainly on the backlog and will improve in the upcoming versions. If you have any questions or issues, feel free to send a mail to support@getbillie.app. (also if you have receipts that you are willing to share :D)
Justin Rockmore
Very cool product - some type of video and/or GIFs on the website would make understanding use and usability way easier
Frederik Jacques
Maker
@justin_rockmore Good point! There is a video (https://youtu.be/aOGHyRXd8bA) and an update of the website is on the way which will showcase the features more visually!
Luc Van Eeckhaute
Congrats on launching! Good Luck!
Bilal Niaz
This sounds like a really helpful tool! I'm always losing track of my invoices and bill payments.
Pieter Beulque
It solves a proper pet peeve of mine! And I love the torn paper look at the bottom, bring back skeuomorphism 😁 Congratulations on the launch!
Frederik Jacques
Maker
@pieterbeulque Haha yes ... eat that Sir Jony Ive 🙈
Tom Hawkins
I was one of the beta testers, and I've seen Billie evolve quite a lot over time (and I mean this in a good way)! Wishing you and Billie all the best! Regards, Tom
Frederik Jacques
Maker
@tom_hawkins_uk Thank you for testing Tom! I hope Billie will help you further along!
Usama Ejaz
Amazing! Billie is revolutionizing the way we manage invoices. Let's chat more about how it can help us streamline this process.
Mayank Kirar
This is exactly what I need. I'm always drowning in invoices, and it can be really hard to keep track of everything. Billie sounds like the perfect solution for me!
Rohan Nishad
The fact that Billie can also mail your invoices to your accountant is a great feature. It's one less thing to worry about, and it makes the whole process so much more streamlined.
Aniket Mishra
This is such a time-saver! I can't tell you how many hours I've spent renaming and organizing my invoices in the past. Billie is a game-changer for me!
Max Schmitt
This looks really cool! I can see myself using this, I'm just a little bit wary of adding yet another subscription to my monthly bills
Frederik Jacques
Maker
@mackseraner Yes, that was indeed the hardest part to decide. Originally Billie was designed to have a one-time fee, but during development beta testers started asking for features where Billie has to rely on 3rd parties, as a quick example "the mail invoice option". For this I rely on MailGun, which is also a service I have to pay every month a fee (at the moment 20$ to be transparant), so with a one-time purchase it would be hard to be sustainable over time. But I understand your remark, I would also have loved it to offer Billie without a subscription!
Max Schmitt
@frederik_jacques1 I totally get it, it's tricky to charge one-time if you have monthly bills associated with usage. Just wanted to get this feedback to you :)
Samuel Kuwano
Awesome tool! As someone who's starting my own business this will definitely come handy for me to organize my invoices. Congrats on your launch!!!!
Doublas Jackson
Is this also possible on windows?
Frederik Jacques
Maker
@doublas_jackson Hi Doublas, no sorry! Billie is only available on macOS at the moment.
Ghost Kitty
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Hayr Hotoca - 1limx.com
Congratulations! Looks like a good idea.
Shada Abdalla
Congrats!! It looks nice and definitely helpful!