This paper benchmarks eight multi-modal large language models from three families (GPT-5, Gemini 2.5, and open-source Gemma 3) on three diverse openly available invoice document datasets using zero-shot prompting. We compare two processing strategies: direct image processing using multi-modal capabilities and a structured parsing approach converting documents to markdown first. Results show native image processing generally outperforms structured approaches, with performance varying across model types and document characteristics. This benchmark provides insights for selecting appropriate models and processing strategies for automated document systems. Our code is available online.
@article{arxiv.2509.04469,
title = {Multi-Modal Vision vs. Text-Based Parsing: Benchmarking LLM Strategies for Invoice Processing},
author = {David Berghaus and Armin Berger and Lars Hillebrand and Kostadin Cvejoski and Rafet Sifa},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2509.04469},
year = {2025}
}