Why accounts payable is the process worth automating first
Of everything a finance team does, accounts payable is high-volume, rule-driven and slow to optimise. That is why it goes first.
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Login or register to Xero
Choose the region your Xero organisation is in. Signing in opens the Cosmic Bills application, which is hosted separately from this website.
Reckon
Login or register for Reckon Hosted
Reckon's API needs a dedicated full-access user inside your own company file. You create it and you control it — Cosmic Bills never receives your own Reckon sign-in.
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Choose your own API credentials
The previous version of this page published a specific username and password for the Reckon API user. Do not use them. Create that user in your own company file with credentials of your choosing, and give it full access.
Customers
What business owners think of Cosmic Bills
Just letting the Reckon Community know, we have been using Cosmic Bills to load our bills in our Hosted account. This process works exceptionally well. It has streamlined our accounts payable substantially. No more data entry.
Robert FavaDirector, Boxes TO GOPosted on the Reckon Community I am a Finance Manager at a medium size entity and we have recently started using Cosmic Bills for accounts payable. We have been able to automate the function and save a number of hours manually entering bills, as well as avoid human errors. I highly recommend it as it is very cost effective and easy to use. The staff at Cosmic Bills are very attentive and happy to assist with any queries we have had. It has been a very easy process to integrate with Reckon Hosted and roll out to our staff.
BojanaFinance Manager If you want a program to process your accounts payable, have a look at Cosmic Bills. It's a great bit of tech — processes your tax invoices in minutes, not hours. You can email PDF tax invoices from your email or drag and drop them from your computer. Great piece of technology to use with Reckon Hosted.
Melinda Jane Koth
Learn
Why businesses automate their bills
The case for automating accounts payable, and how the product actually behaves once you do.
Articles
The Cosmic Bills features Xero users get the most out of
Scan history, PDF preview, supplier mapping and line splitting — the parts people actually use every week.
How much time does bill entry actually take?
Manual entry of a dozen multi-line bills is slow enough to be worth measuring. Here is how to work out what yours costs.
Three reasons to automate your bills into Xero
A direct Xero connection, time back on every bill run, and a lower cost per invoice as your volume grows.
Is accounts payable automation necessary?
Not for every business. Here is how to tell whether your volume and complexity have reached the point where it pays for itself.
Why do some businesses still process bills manually?
The usual answer is cost, and it is usually wrong. The real reasons are more interesting — and some of them are good.
Video walkthroughs
How to register Cosmic Bills to a Xero data file
How to register Cosmic Bills to a Xero data file (newer version)
How to register Cosmic Bills to a Xero data file
How to map suppliers into a chart of accounts for Xero
How to map suppliers to a chart of accounts
How to edit bills in detail and manage duplicated bills
Smart, simple data processing and approval for businesses
Automated data capture
Data capture without manual entry. Cosmic Bills reads the document so nobody has to retype it.
Line item extraction
All invoice data is extracted, including every line item, tax, and tracking or inventory detail the document carries.
Paperless expense approval
Approvals happen on screen, so a team can review and sign off on bills without being in the same room as the paper.
What Cosmic Bills does
Automated bills processing
Cosmic Bills removes the painful part of accounts payable — entering bills with multiple line items by hand.
It reduces what accounts payable costs you and gets the routine work off your team.
Full integration
Integrated with Xero, Reckon Accounts and QuickBooks Online.
All invoice data is extracted, including line items. Drag and drop, upload, scan, or email an invoice straight to your account.
Deep learning system
Cosmic Bills uses a deep learning network with algorithmic weightings rather than per-supplier templates.
It keeps learning from customers: when you correct invoice data, that feedback informs how future bills are read.
How it works
Four steps, from a PDF in your inbox to a coded bill in your ledger
Nothing is posted without you approving it. The review step is where you stay in control of the numbers.
Step 1. Upload
Drag and drop PDFs, or pick them from your computer. Bills and receipts both work.
Step 2. Extract
Cosmic Bills reads the supplier, dates, totals, tax and every line item on the document.
Step 3. Review and approve
Check the extracted data against the original PDF side by side. Edit, split lines, or fix coding, then approve the bills you want.
Step 4. Export
Approved bills post to Xero or Reckon with their line items and the original file attached.
Supported platforms
Two accounting systems, each set up its own way
Cosmic Bills connects to Xero through Xero's own authorisation flow, and to Reckon Accounts Hosted through a dedicated API user in your data file. The setup is different in each, so each has its own page.
Xero
Cosmic Bills for Xero
Connect a Xero organisation, upload your supplier bills, check the extracted line items, and post them straight into Xero as draft, awaiting approval, or approved.
What gets written back
- Bills with full line-item detail
- The original PDF, attached to the bill in Xero
- Credit notes, detected automatically and exported as credit notes
- New suppliers extracted from your invoices
Set up Xero
Reckon
Cosmic Bills for Reckon
Send supplier bills into Reckon Accounts Hosted with their line items, job costing, class tracking and stock items intact — without retyping them.
What gets written back
- Bills with full line-item detail
- Job costing and class tracking against each line
- Bill items mapped to your Reckon stock items
- Tax invoices created from third-party sales orders
Set up Reckon
Capabilities
Built around how payables actually gets done
The work is not just reading a number off a page. It is coding the line, checking it against the PDF, and knowing nothing posts until someone says so.
Line-item extraction
Bills are read in full, not just the total. Every line comes across with its description, quantity, unit price and tax, however many there are.
Supplier mapping
Map each supplier to the expense account it should code to. Every supplier starts on Cost of Goods Sold until you change it, and the mapping is applied on every future bill from that supplier.
Account coding
Account codes come from the chart of accounts in your own accounting system, read through the connection you authorised.
Side-by-side document review
Open the original PDF next to the extracted data before anything is posted, so you can check what was read against what was on the page.
Approvals before posting
Select which bills to approve and post. Nothing reaches your ledger until someone approves it.
Credit note detection
Credit notes are detected and exported as credit notes rather than bills. If one is classified wrongly, support will correct it.
Why teams use it
Less manual accounts payable work, and more confidence in what posted
Time back on every bill run
A bill with twenty lines takes as long to type as a bill with one takes to check. Cosmic Bills removes the typing and leaves you the checking.
Fewer transcription errors
The figures come off the document rather than out of someone's memory of it, and you compare them against the original PDF before anything posts.
Consistent coding
Supplier and product mappings apply the same account every time, so the same invoice does not land in three different accounts across three months.
A smaller manual workload
Upload a batch, sign out, and come back to bills that are ready to approve. The queue does not need a person watching it.
Pricing
Start on the free plan and move up when your volume does
Twenty documents a month, free, for as long as you want it. Paid plans add volume and unused documents carry over.
Free
$0per month
20 documents per month
20 documents every month, at no cost, for as long as you want it.
Small
$25per month
plus GST
180 documents per month
180 documents a month for smaller accounts payable volumes.
Most chosen
Medium
$50per month
plus GST
330 documents per month
330 documents a month for steady weekly bill runs.
Security and privacy
What happens to your data, in plain terms
Accounts payable data is sensitive. Here is what Cosmic Bills reads, what it keeps, and what it never does.
You authorise the connection
Cosmic Bills reads your accounting data through a connection you authorise and can revoke. For Reckon, you create a dedicated API user inside your own data file rather than sharing your own sign-in.
Only what is needed to process a bill
Contacts, chart of accounts, tax settings and your organisation's own ABN — used to match suppliers, choose accounts, and stop your own company being treated as a supplier.
Card details are not stored
Payments are handled by Stripe. Cosmic Bills does not hold your card data.
Documents are retained
Invoice documents are kept for a minimum of seven years, in line with record-keeping practice. You can request erasure, which ends that commitment.
Not shared with third parties
Your personal, document and accounting information is not disclosed to third parties without your explicit consent or a court order.
You check the numbers
Extraction is not perfect and is not claimed to be. Every bill is reviewed and approved by a person before it reaches your ledger.
Help
Set-up guides, answers, and someone to email
Most questions about connecting, coding and subscriptions are already answered in the user guides.
Guide
Quick start guide
Sign up, connect your accounting system, and choose how you want bills uploaded.
Guide
Get started with Xero
Authorising Cosmic Bills in Xero, testing the connection, and what to do when the organisation list will not let you choose.
Support
Contact support
Email support with the invoice attached if a bill is not extracted the way you expect.
Stop retyping supplier bills
Start on the free plan, connect Xero or Reckon, and process your first bills today.