Extract data from collection letters

A collection letter is the notice a creditor sends when an invoice has gone unpaid past its due date. In accounts receivable it is the dunning notice, and it usually arrives in a sequence: a first reminder, a second notice, a final demand, and then a pre-legal warning, each escalating the tone and the consequence. The letter states the debtor and the creditor, the original invoice and its date, the amount originally owed, anything already paid, the late fees or interest added, and the total now due by a firm deadline. An AR collections team working a large receivables ledger tracks these by how far past due each account sits and which stage of the sequence the debtor has reached, so a 90-days-past-due account on a final notice gets different handling from a 15-day first reminder. Numbers on a dunning notice rarely reduce to one figure. An original invoice of 12,400 might carry a 620 late fee and a partial payment of 3,000, leaving a balance the letter has to reconcile: original amount, less amount paid, plus accrued fees, equals the total now due. When several invoices are overdue, the letter itemizes each with its own days-overdue count, and the aggregate rolls up to the balance. A notice also names a dispute or objection window during which the debtor can challenge the charge, a firm collection deadline, and the next action threatened if payment does not arrive. Because collection practice is regulated, extracting these fields is a records task: the extraction reports what the letter states rather than offering any legal advice on how a creditor should act. Point Talonic at the notice and the debtor and creditor, the original invoice reference and date, the original amount, the amount paid, the late fees, and the total now due come back as typed numbers in one currency, alongside the days past due, the collection stage, the payment deadline, and any dispute window. Where several invoices are overdue, each returns as a row with its own balance and days-overdue count that roll up to the aggregate. A German Mahnung and a US final notice are read the same way, so a second notice dated 2026-04-28 from Rheintal Supplies to Kessler Handel, a EUR balance with a 2026-05-12 deadline, loads into a collections workflow the team can prioritize by stage and age rather than re-key.

What gets extracted from collection letters

How extraction works for collection letters

Collection letters and dunning notices are generated by ERP dunning runs such as SAP dunning levels and NetSuite, by collections platforms, and by agency letter templates, so a first reminder, a final demand, and a German Mahnung differ in tone and layout while carrying the same accounting. Talonic classifies the notice and maps it to the receivables model in the Field Registry, which keeps the original amount, the amount paid, the accrued late fees, and the total due as distinct typed numbers rather than one balance. The arithmetic is reconciled so a total that does not equal the original less payments plus fees is flagged, the days past due and the collection stage are read for prioritization, and multilingual labels are resolved to canonical fields. The dispute window and the stated next action are captured as text without interpretation. Each value returns with a confidence score and a pixel-region pointer under DIN SPEC 91491, so a collections analyst can check a balance or a deadline against the source notice; the extraction records what the letter says and does not provide legal advice.

Sample extraction

A second-notice dunning letter for an overdue EUR balance

{
  "document_number": "DUN-2026-04-2210",
  "document_date": "2026-04-28",
  "debtor.name": "Kessler Handel GmbH",
  "creditor.name": "Rheintal Supplies AG",
  "invoice_number": "INV-2026-0331",
  "invoice_date": "2026-02-15",
  "currency": "EUR",
  "original_amount": 12400,
  "amount_paid": 3000,
  "late_fees": 620,
  "total_amount": 10020,
  "due_date": "2026-03-01",
  "collection_due_date": "2026-05-12",
  "days_past_due": 58,
  "collection_stage": "second_notice",
  "dispute_period": "14 days from notice date",
  "next_action": "Referral to external collection agency if unpaid by 2026-05-12"
}

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