Python Developer-PDF Purchase Order → WooCommerce + QuickBooks Auto-Invoice System, Railway/FastAPI

Project Summary — Fathouse Performance PO Invoice Importer Fathouse Performance receives PDF purchase orders from B2B customers. This system eliminates manual data entry by automatically converting those PDFs into QuickBooks invoices. How it works: Staff open a browser, drag a PDF purchase order onto the page, and walk away. The system reads the PDF, extracts all invoice data, creates a WooCommerce order, and MyWorks Sync (already installed and configured) automatically syncs it into QuickBooks Desktop on Rightworks as a Net 30 invoice — completely separate from the credit card website orders. The server is a Python/FastAPI app deployed on Railway (free tier). It has a built-in web interface so no desktop app or installation is needed on any computer. It serves a login-protected drag-and-drop upload page, a job history panel, and a name-mapping editor for correcting any discrepancies between PDF names and WooCommerce/QuickBooks names. PDF extraction uses three tiers to minimize AI API costs: (1) a SHA-256 hash cache returns instant results for previously seen files, (2) a local regex parser handles most clean structured PDFs for free, and (3) Claude AI (Haiku model) is only called when the local parser isn't confident enough. The UI shows which tier fired on each upload. Terms are handled by tagging each PO-sourced WooCommerce order with payment_method = "purchase_order". One mapping in MyWorks settings maps that to Net 30 terms in QuickBooks. All website orders use their existing Stripe/PayPal mappings and are unaffected. Duplicate protection runs at two levels: an instant local database check by PO number, and a WooCommerce order search as a second layer. Errored jobs can be safely retried. Developer needs to: Deploy the server/ folder to Railway, set 6 environment variables (WooCommerce API keys, Anthropic API key, web password, DB path), add one payment method mapping in MyWorks, and share the Railway URL with staff. The README in the zip covers every step in detail. The code is already written and tested. What a developer actually needs to do is deploy it, verify it works end-to-end with your live WooCommerce store, handle any edge cases specific to your actual PO formats, and make adjustments based on real-world testing. This is closer to a deployment and integration project than a build-from-scratch project. A mid-level Python developer with API integration experience should handle it comfortably. You don't need a senior engineer.