Everyone spells your supplier differently

The invoice says “Wayne Enterprises”. Your supplier master says “Wayne Enterprises, Inc.” and your ERP only speaks SUP-1042. Next month the same supplier writes “WAYNE ENTERPRISES SA” and the whole thing starts again. Smart lookup resolves the name on the page against a CSV you upload once, and returns the row your systems need.

On the invoice

INVOICE

In suppliers.csv

→

What comes back

vendor_name97%

invoice_number96%

supplier_id

payment_termsNET30

NodesCredits135 per pageYou get

The workflow

Smart lookup is not a node of its own. It is a source on a field of the Extract node, plus the reference CSV attached to that node. Here vendor_name is read off the page; supplier_id and payment_terms are resolved from the file.

{
  "name": "Invoices with supplier codes",
  "description": "Read the supplier name off the invoice, then resolve it to the code your ERP uses",
  "nodes": [
    { "id": "parse_1", "type": "parse" },
    {
      "id": "extract_1",
      "type": "extract",
      "extraction_schema": {
        "fields": [
          { "name": "vendor_name",    "description": "Supplier name exactly as printed on the invoice", "data_type": "string" },
          { "name": "invoice_number", "description": "The unique invoice identifier", "data_type": "string" },
          {
            "name": "supplier_id",
            "description": "Canonical supplier code from the supplier master, joined on the supplier name",
            "data_type": "string",
            "source": "smart_lookup"
          },
          {
            "name": "payment_terms",
            "description": "Agreed payment terms for this supplier, from the supplier master",
            "data_type": "string",
            "source": "smart_lookup"
          }
        ]
      },
      "lookup_file_uploads": [
        { "filename": "suppliers.csv", "content": "<base64 of the CSV bytes>" }
      ],
      "lookup_suggestion": "Match the supplier name against the supplier_name column, ignoring legal suffixes such as Inc., Ltd, LLC and S.A. Return the row's supplier_id and payment_terms."
    }
  ],
  "edges": [{ "source": "parse_1", "target": "extract_1" }]
}

import os

from anyformat.sdk import Client
from anyformat.workflow import Schema

client = Client(api_key=os.environ["ANYFORMAT_API_KEY"])

workflow = (
    client.workflow("Invoices with supplier codes", "Resolve the supplier to the code your ERP uses")
    .parse()
    .extract(
        [
            Schema.string("vendor_name", "Supplier name exactly as printed on the invoice"),
            Schema.string("invoice_number", "The unique invoice identifier"),
            Schema.string(
                "supplier_id",
                "Canonical supplier code from the supplier master, joined on the supplier name",
                source="smart_lookup",
            ),
            Schema.string(
                "payment_terms",
                "Agreed payment terms for this supplier, from the supplier master",
                source="smart_lookup",
            ),
        ],
        lookup_files=["suppliers.csv"],
        lookup_suggestion=(
            "Match the supplier name against the supplier_name column, ignoring legal suffixes "
            "such as Inc., Ltd, LLC and S.A. Return the row's supplier_id and payment_terms."
        ),
    )
    .create()
)

import { Anyformat, Schema } from "@anyformat/sdk";

const af = new Anyformat({ apiKey: process.env.ANYFORMAT_API_KEY! });

const workflow = await af
  .workflow("Invoices with supplier codes", "Resolve the supplier to the code your ERP uses")
  .parse()
  .extract(
    [
      Schema.string("vendor_name", "Supplier name exactly as printed on the invoice"),
      Schema.string("invoice_number", "The unique invoice identifier"),
      Schema.string("supplier_id", "Canonical supplier code from the supplier master, joined on the supplier name", {
        source: "smart_lookup",
      }),
      Schema.string("payment_terms", "Agreed payment terms for this supplier, from the supplier master", {
        source: "smart_lookup",
      }),
    ],
    {
      lookupFiles: ["suppliers.csv"],
      lookupSuggestion:
        "Match the supplier name against the supplier_name column, ignoring legal suffixes such as Inc., Ltd, LLC and S.A. Return the row's supplier_id and payment_terms.",
    },
  )
  .create();

The SDKs read each path in lookup_files from disk and send it as lookup_file_uploads. Over the API you send the bytes inline, base64-encoded.

The reference file

Any CSV with a column to match on and the columns you want back. This one carries a near-miss on purpose: two suppliers whose names both start with “Wayne”.

suppliers.csv

supplier_id,supplier_name,city,payment_terms
SUP-1042,"Wayne Enterprises, Inc.",Gotham,NET30
SUP-2013,"Wayne Medical Supplies LLC",Gotham,NET45
SUP-3390,"Acme Industries S.A.",Phoenix,NET15
SUP-4471,"Globex Corporation Ltd",Springfield,NET30
SUP-5528,"Initech LLC",Austin,NET60

Response

vendor_name and invoice_number were read off the page, so they carry a confidence and the phrase they came from. supplier_id and payment_terms came out of the CSV, so their confidence is null and their evidence is empty: there is no page they were read from.

{
  "status": "processed",
  "results": {
    "extractions": [
      {
        "split_name": null,
        "partition": null,
        "fields": {
          "vendor_name": {
            "value": "Wayne Enterprises",
            "confidence": 97.0,
            "evidence": [{ "text": "From: Wayne Enterprises\n148 Eric Track, New Stephanie, NC 00575", "page_number": 1 }],
            "verification_status": "not_verified",
            "value_override": null
          },
          "invoice_number": {
            "value": "INV-2026-9001",
            "confidence": 96.0,
            "evidence": [{ "text": "Invoice #: INV-2026-9001\nIssue date: 2026-02-20", "page_number": 1 }],
            "verification_status": "not_verified",
            "value_override": null
          },
          "supplier_id": {
            "value": "SUP-1042",
            "confidence": null,
            "evidence": [],
            "verification_status": "not_verified",
            "value_override": null
          },
          "payment_terms": {
            "value": "NET30",
            "confidence": null,
            "evidence": [],
            "verification_status": "not_verified",
            "value_override": null
          }
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}

When it goes wrong

The looked-up field has no confidence. That is correct, not a bug. A looked-up value did not come off the page, so there is nothing to be confident about and nothing to cite. Judge the match by the extracted field beside it: if vendor_name is right, the join had the right input. It matched the wrong row. Two suppliers here start with “Wayne”. The matcher works from the field name, the field description and lookup_suggestion, so add the signal that separates them: “match on supplier name and city”. A description that names the column beats a clever hint. Nothing comes back. The lookup returns empty when no row is a defensible match, which is the honest answer for a supplier that is not in your file yet. Use "source": "lookup_if_missing" when you would rather keep whatever was printed on the page than get nothing. You wanted to check a value against a fixed list. Then you want an enum field, not a lookup. Smart lookup is for a list that lives in a file and returns a different value than the one it matched. The workflow is rejected when you save it. An Extract node with a lookup field and no reference file is refused at save time. Send lookup_file_uploads on create, or add the file to the node in Studio.

Examples

Read the page

Messy piles

Money and compliance

At scale

Everyone spells your supplier differently

The workflow

The reference file

Response

When it goes wrong

Next steps

Smart lookup

Field types

​The workflow

​The reference file

​Response

​When it goes wrong

​Next steps

Smart lookup

Field types

The workflow

The reference file

Response

When it goes wrong

Next steps