Catch Supplier Price Increases by Comparing Two Invoices in a Free AI Chat
Upload an older and a newer invoice from the same supplier to Claude or ChatGPT and get a table of every unit-price change and new fee, plus a draft email to your rep. ChatGPT Free allows three file uploads a day.
What it takes
- Cost
- Free planClaude: Free plan. Pro is $20 a month billed monthly ($17 a month billed yearly), and Max starts at $100 a month. Team seats are $25 a month billed monthly.Price checked Oct 24, 2026 on claude.com. Prices change; check before you buy.
- Setup time
- Under an hourOur estimate from the source, for one business.
- Skill needed
- No codeApps and settings only.
Explain it simply
Supplier prices creep up and nobody notices because invoices get approved at the back door. Photograph last month's invoice and this week's, upload both to an AI chat app, and ask it to compare the price per unit line by line and draft a polite email asking for the old price.
What was done
This is a template built from the apps' help pages, not a business's story. Upload two invoices from one supplier, 30 to 60 days apart, as photos or PDFs, and run the prompt. Check each flagged line against the paper invoice before you email the rep.
How it went
No business result is claimed for the chat method. Upload limits checked Oct 18, 2026: ChatGPT Free "3 file uploads per day"; Claude chat "Up to 20 files per chat".
- AI can misread blurry photos. In ChatGPT outside Enterprise, image-only PDFs may be read as text only, so upload scans as photos.
- Dedicated tools such as Dishboard or xtraCHEF track every invoice automatically; this is a free spot check.
Prompt
Context: You are the owner or manager of a business that buys from the same suppliers every week (food, parts, retail stock). Run this monthly, or whenever an invoice total looks high.
Act as a purchasing and cost-control auditor for my [BUSINESS_TYPE].
I have attached two invoices from [SUPPLIER_NAME]: an older baseline invoice dated [BASELINE_DATE] and a newer invoice dated [NEW_DATE].
1. Extract every line item that appears on BOTH invoices. Match items by SKU first; if there is no SKU, match by description and pack size, and list any match you are unsure of under "Check by hand".
2. Compare UNIT prices only (per case, lb, gallon or unit). Ignore line-total differences caused by ordering different quantities. If the pack size changed, convert to a per-unit price and say so.
3. Build a table: Item | SKU | Pack size (old → new) | Old unit price | New unit price | $ change per unit | % change | Extra cost on this invoice.
4. Separately list any NEW fees, surcharges, minimum-order charges or substitutions that were not on the older invoice.
5. Do not guess. If a number is unreadable, write "unreadable" instead of estimating.
6. Draft a polite, firm email of no more than 5 sentences to [REP_NAME] asking to restore our previous pricing on the [NUMBER_OF_ITEMS] largest per-unit increases, or to credit the difference on our next delivery. Reference our account number [ACCOUNT_NUMBER] and the invoice numbers.
Our template, cleaned from an outside draft and checked against the official help pages. Replace the [brackets]; check every number before you act on it.
Business fit
Who this helps, and how:
Restaurants and cafés: check this week's food distributor invoice against last month's before you pay it.
Local & serviceAuto shops: spot unit-price changes on parts invoices and ask for a credit.
Local & service
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Similar tools
Other tools for this job, and how they differ. Chosen by our editors, never paid for.
- Gemini
Also reads uploaded documents and photos; free with a Google account.
- xtraCHEF by Toast
Reads every invoice automatically and tracks food costs over time.
“Light evidence” (grade D) means: A brief, early or in-progress claim. Treat it as an idea to test, not proof. How we grade. Spotted a mistake? Suggest a correction.
