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Documents lets you turn PDF statements and receipts into transactions when Redbark does not support your bank or brokerage as a live connection. You create a bucket, add files (by upload or by email), and Redbark extracts the transactions for you. Once extracted, a bucket behaves like any other connection. You can add it to a sync to deliver its transactions to your destinations, and you can query it through the API and MCP server, in exactly the same shape as a bank connection. In other words, Documents is an alternative to a connection for the cases the CDR and our brokerage providers do not cover yet (for example American Express, see Connections).
Documents is currently rolling out to beta testers and may not be visible on every account yet.

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How Documents differs from a bank connection

This is the important distinction. Bank and brokerage connections are pass-through: transactions are proxied live from the provider at sync time and written straight to your destination. Nothing is kept on our servers. See Consents and data. Documents cannot work that way. There is no live provider feed to proxy, so to get your transactions we have to read the file you give us. That means Documents stores data that a normal connection never does.
Documents is not pass-through. To extract your transactions we store both:
  • The file you upload or forward, in encrypted object storage. We keep it as the provenance for the rows we extracted from it.
  • The extracted transactions, in our database, so they can be queried and synced.
This is different from bank and brokerage connections, where files are never involved and transaction data is never stored. If that trade-off does not suit you, use a live connection instead where one is available.
Deleting a file removes its stored bytes and its extracted rows. Deleting a bucket removes everything in it.

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Buckets

A bucket collects related files and the transactions extracted from them. There are two types:

Statement

For an account at a bank we do not support. Add statement PDFs and the line items become transactions automatically.

Receipts

For tracking individual purchases. Add a receipt and it is captured as a transaction.
Behind the scenes a bucket is modelled as a connection with a single account, which is why it shows up alongside your bank connections in the API and can be added to a sync.

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Adding documents

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Upload

On a bucket, drag and drop files onto the upload area or click to choose them. Supported file types are PDF, PNG, JPEG, CSV, OFX/QFX/QBO, and QIF, up to 4 MB each.

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Email

Each bucket has its own forwarding address, shown on the bucket’s Settings tab (for example u_ab12cd34@documents.redbark.com). Forward an email to that address and Redbark extracts the document from it. This is handy for statements and receipts that already arrive in your inbox: in Gmail, for instance, you can set up a filter that auto-forwards them.
The document must be an attachment. Redbark only reads file attachments (PDF, PNG, JPEG, CSV, OFX/QFX/QBO, or QIF). Text in the body of the email itself is not extracted, so a receipt pasted into the email body, or an HTML email receipt with no attachment, will not produce any transactions.Nothing is dropped silently: if a forwarded email has no readable attachment, it still appears in the bucket as a file marked “received but unreadable” so you can see it arrived.

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After extraction

Extracted transactions are added to the bucket and sync to your destinations automatically, in the same format as bank transactions. There is no manual review or confirmation step. Redbark still validates every row as it reads it (checking the amount, date, and currency, and reconciling a statement against its stated total where possible). Rows that look off are flagged as low-confidence and synced anyway, with a marker on the transaction so you can spot them. If an extraction is clearly wrong, delete the file to remove its rows and upload a cleaner copy.

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Limits

Reading a PDF, PNG, or JPEG uses an AI model, so those extractions are metered. Structured formats (CSV, OFX/QFX/QBO, and QIF) parse deterministically with no model call, so they are always free and never count against your allowance. Every plan includes a monthly allowance of AI-extracted documents: A few things worth knowing:
  • You’re only charged for successful extractions. A document counts toward your allowance once it reaches the Ready state. Failed extractions and forwarded emails with no readable attachment never use a slot.
  • The allowance resets on the 1st of each month (UTC).
  • Each file can be up to 4 MB and 30 pages. Larger files are rejected before extraction. Split a long statement into parts if you hit the page limit.
If you reach your monthly allowance, uploading a metered file (PDF, PNG, or JPEG) is rejected on the spot with a clear error and the file is not recorded. A metered document forwarded by email is kept in the bucket as a visible failed item so you can see it arrived. Nothing extracts automatically when the allowance resets: you re-submit any documents you still want processed. Structured formats (CSV, OFX/QFX/QBO, QIF) are free and keep working even at the limit. Existing transactions and syncs are unaffected.

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Using a bucket

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With syncs

Add a bucket to a sync the same way you add a bank connection, then pick a destination. Its transactions are written to that destination in the same format as bank transactions. Uploading several months of statements and adding the bucket to a sync backfills that history automatically.

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With the API and MCP

A bucket appears in GET /connections and GET /accounts, and its transactions are returned by GET /transactions, in the same shape as transactions from a bank. Your AI tools see it through the MCP server the same way. No special handling is needed on the consumer side: a bucket is just another connection.