Azure AI Content Understanding is Transforming Invoice, Sales & Claims Processing

Introduction

For companies that regularly receive invoices, purchase orders, and sales data from external partners, document processing has long been a challenge. While many AI-powered document services exist, they often fall short in one critical area: handling diverse file formats without extensive pre-training.

This is where Azure AI Content Understanding (Azure AI CU) shines. It not only supports a broader range of formats—including Excel files and CSVs—but also delivers accurate, structured results with minimal setup.

The Challenge with Traditional Document AI Services

Our recent project with a client highlighted the limitations of many AI document services:

• Format Restrictions – Excel files, a staple for many businesses, are often unsupported. This means converting spreadsheets into PDFs or images before processing—a time-consuming step—or creating a separate import process.

• Training Requirements – Legacy services like Azure Document Service (ADS) required hundreds of sample documents to achieve acceptable accuracy. This investment of time and effort slows implementation.

• Narrow Input Handling – Many SaaS AI solutions are optimized for images and PDFs, struggling with structured file formats like CSV and Excel.

• Low Accuracy - For document AI Saas platforms that don't require training, they all appeared to struggle with accuracy in a fair number of scenarios.

Why Azure AI Content Understanding is Different

During our proof of concept with Azure AI CU, the difference was immediate:

Azure AI CU’s out-of-the-box accuracy was comparable to ADS after heavy training—but without the need for that training step.

Key Features of Azure AI Content Understanding

1. Broad File Format Support – Excel (.xlsx), CSV, PDF, Word, images, HTML, and more.

2. Minimal Setup – Works well with just a handful of sample documents or even none.

3. AI-Driven Structure Detection – Identifies and extracts key fields from structured and semi-structured data.

4. Contextual Understanding – Uses Azure’s large language models to improve interpretation of business context.

5. Integration Ready – Easily integrates with Azure Functions, Logic Apps, Power Automate, and other enterprise workflows.

Business Impact

For our client, this means:

• Reduced onboarding time – We could process partner-provided Excel and CSV files without format conversion.

• Lower implementation costs – No need for a lengthy training phase.

• Improved agility – We could adapt quickly when new document layouts or formats were introduced.

• Faster ROI – Deployment moved from months to weeks.

The Bigger Picture

Azure AI CU represents a shift in the intelligent document processing landscape. Instead of requiring businesses to mold their data to fit the AI, it’s the AI adapting to the data. For organizations receiving a constant stream of mixed-format documents from external partners, this flexibility is critical.

In a recent engagement, we helped a leading retail solutions provider evaluate whether to build or buy an invoice automation system. After testing multiple off-the-shelf tools against Azure Document Service and Azure AI Content Understanding, the results were clear—Azure delivered higher accuracy and lower long-term costs. By scaling to process tens of thousands of invoices monthly, the client reduced manual work and unlocked significant savings over five years.

Conclusion

In our view, Azure AI Content Understanding isn’t just an upgrade from Azure Document Service, it’s a different way of thinking about document AI. By handling Excel, CSV, PDF, common image formats and other common partner formats with minimal setup, it removes a major barrier to automation and opens the door to faster, more cost-effective non-structured and semi-structured data processing.

Next Steps

If your organization struggles with processing invoices, sales data, or other business documents from multiple partners, consider testing Azure AI CU. You may find that the combination of format flexibility and instant accuracy dramatically accelerates your automation goals. Interested in rapidly putting together a POC? Reach out to our team!

FAQs About Azure AI Content Understanding

1. What is Azure AI Content Understanding?

Azure AI Content Understanding is a cloud-based service from Microsoft that uses advanced AI to process and interpret documents. Unlike traditional tools, it can handle multiple formats like Excel, CSV, PDFs, images, and Word files, making it easier for businesses to extract accurate, structured information without heavy pre-training.

2. How does Azure AI Content Understanding work?

It combines machine learning, natural language processing (NLP), and computer vision to analyze different types of content. For example, if you upload an invoice or a sales report, Azure AI CU can automatically detect key fields, classify data, and provide structured results that integrate into your workflows.

3. What are the key features?

Some of the standout features include:

• Multi-format support (Excel, CSV, PDFs, images, Word, HTML)

• High accuracy with minimal setup (works even without large training sets)

• Automatic data extraction and tagging from structured and semi-structured content

• Contextual understanding powered by Azure’s large language models

• Easy integration with Azure Functions, Power Automate, and Logic Apps

4. What are the main use cases?

Azure AI CU is built for organizations that deal with large volumes of documents from multiple partners. Common use cases include:

• Invoice processing – Extracting billing details without manual entry

• Sales data processing – Handling partner-provided Excel or CSV files

• Claims management – Interpreting structured and semi-structured claim forms

• Purchase order management – Automating repetitive supplier document handling