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Need help in this area? See Data Input FAQ.
Uploads let you get bills into Nectar when automatic connections aren’t an option — old paper bills, PDFs emailed by a client, a small utility that doesn’t have an online portal, or historical data the utility portal no longer shows. If you have a utility bill in any form, Nectar can probably read it. After an upload finishes, you can preview the file exactly as you submitted it and, when something looks wrong, reprocess a document with feedback so Nectar runs it again with your guidance. Navigate to Data Input > Uploads and click New upload to start uploading utility bills. You can also click Upload bills instead on the New Connection page.

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What makes a good upload

Not all files are created equal. Here’s what works best:
  • Clear, full-page PDF files are ideal — the kind you’d get downloading a bill directly from a utility website or receiving one as an email attachment.
  • PNG images work too, as long as the text is legible. Think high-resolution scans rather than photos taken from across the room.
  • Avoid blurry photos, cropped screenshots, password-protected files, or heavily compressed images.
A useful test: if you handed the document to a coworker and asked them to read the bill, could they? If yes, Nectar can handle it.
1

Matching

Tell Nectar where the bills belong. Under What kind of upload is this?, choose:
  • Single site / account — All files are for the same location or utility account. Set Site and Account to Auto-detect from bill, or pick a specific site and account. The account list is filtered to the selected site.
  • Bulk / mixed upload — Files span multiple sites or accounts, or you’re not sure. Nectar detects the site and account from each bill.
Providing context here improves matching accuracy when bills are ambiguous.
2

Upload Files

Drag and drop files onto the upload area, or click to browse files from your computer. Nectar accepts PDF, PNG, JPG, XLSX, and XLS formats.You can upload multiple files at once. Each file should contain a single utility bill for the best extraction results. The maximum is 100 files per upload, 50 MB each.
3

Options

Fine-tune how Nectar processes the upload:
  • Utility types — Check the commodity types (Electricity, Natural Gas, Water, etc.) if you know them. Leave unchecked to auto-detect.
  • Notes — Add any context that might help with processing, such as the billing period or a note about the source.
  • Skip duplicate detection — Not recommended. Skips exact and probable duplicate checks and may create duplicate bills in Nectar.
Click Upload N files to submit. Uploaded bills match existing accounts in your company when Nectar can identify them — including accounts collected by an online connection. There is no extra option to “match historical data” to online accounts; matching is always on.

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Upload jobs table

After submitting an upload, you can track its progress on the Uploads page. Each job shows a Status: Use the filter bar to search by file name or job ID, or filter by Status, Source (for example Platform, Email, API, Reprocess, or Invitation), Uploaded By, Sender, and Upload Date. Columns include Site, Files, and Bills Created; use the column settings to show or hide others, such as Account. Jobs created by Reprocess with feedback appear in the same table with a Reprocess source. Bills forwarded to the company inbox appear with source Email. For those jobs, Sender is the address that emailed the inbox — not the inbox itself. Uploaded By is the platform user for manual uploads. Click any row to view the upload job details.

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What happens after upload

Once you submit a file, three things happen automatically:
  1. Processing — Nectar’s AI reads the document and extracts service dates, total charges, usage amounts (kWh, therms, gallons, etc.), meter numbers, and account information. The first bills for a new account or utility can take up to 24 hours because Nectar has the least context. Once an account is being monitored, later bills typically process in under 5 minutes.
  2. Matching — Nectar matches the extracted data to existing accounts and meters. If it finds an account or meter number it hasn’t seen before, it creates a standalone account or meter automatically and attaches new meters to the right site — you don’t need to set up a connection first.
  3. Available — The bill and all its data appear in Data Inventory > Bills, ready for review, editing, and export.
Your as-uploaded file is kept with the upload job so you can preview or download it from the job detail page even while processing is still running.

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Reprocess with feedback

If extraction missed a value, matched the wrong account, or otherwise needs another pass, open the upload job details page and choose Reprocess with feedback on that document. You provide required feedback (what went wrong and what Nectar should look for), and optionally override the site or account. Nectar:
  1. Queues a new upload job (source Reprocess) using the original file.
  2. Marks the source document as Reprocessed and links it to the new job.
  3. Replaces any bill created from that document with the result of the new run.
Track progress on the new job from Data Input > Uploads, the same way as a normal upload.

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Duplicate detection

By default, Nectar checks every uploaded bill against existing documents to see if there’s a match. It compares the utility provider, account number, service dates, and total charges. If it finds a match, the upload is flagged as a potential duplicate. If it’s a real duplicate — great, Nectar caught it. No action needed. If it’s a false positive — this occasionally happens with corrected bills or amended invoices that share service dates with the original. Open the upload job and choose Reprocess with feedback on the duplicate document. Nectar reprocesses it with duplicate detection skipped. See Upload job details — Duplicates. To skip duplicate checking for a specific upload (for example, when you know the bill is a legitimate amendment), toggle Skip duplicate detection in the Options step. This may create duplicate bills — only use it when you intentionally need the amended bill processed.