Best Document Extraction Tools
for Property Managers 2026: 8 Compared
We tested eight document extraction tools on the two document categories property managers face every day — long-form lease agreements (20–60 pages) requiring precise clause extraction, and the recurring stack of rent invoices, maintenance receipts, and utility bills that demand fast batch processing — measuring extraction accuracy on key lease fields (tenant name, rent amount, security deposit, lease term, renewal dates, late fee policy) and batch throughput on short operational documents. Property management occupies a unique position in the document extraction landscape: no other industry routinely asks a single tool to handle both a 50-page legal contract and a crumpled handyman receipt in the same workday. Most tools are built for one or the other. We wanted to find the ones that can do both — and be honest about where each one falls short. (If you manage freelance or contractor workflows instead, our freelancer extraction roundup covers that angle separately.)
Key Takeaways
- Eight tools all promise to handle your property documents — but the moment you upload a 35-page lease next to a crumpled maintenance receipt, most of them pick one and silently ignore the other.
- When PMS platforms say "AI document processing," they mean reading vendor and date from standard invoices — not extracting late fee policy from page 27 of a lease, or line items from a photographed plumber's bill.
- The property managers saving 15+ hours a month are not the ones with the most expensive PMS — they paired a focused extraction layer with their existing platform and stopped manually re-entering data between the two.
Disclosure: This post includes affiliate links. ImageToTable.ai is the tool we built and sell. Every other tool on this list is a genuine competitor we have tested. We call out their strengths and limitations honestly. You will not find "ImageToTable.ai is the best at everything here" — because it is not, and property management documents are too varied for any single tool to dominate every category.
Quick Comparison Table
| Tool | Price | Lease Extraction | Batch Invoices/Receipts | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ImageToTable.ai | $9–$29/mo | Custom column extraction, computed columns | Batch-first, inferred columns | Property managers who define their own output schema |
| AppFolio | ~$1.49/unit/mo | Basic lease storage, limited extraction | AI invoice processing | All-in-one PM platform (50+ units) |
| Yardi Voyager | Custom (enterprise) | Document management + compliance tracking | Enterprise AP workflows | Large portfolios with compliance needs |
| Buildium | From $58/mo | Lease e-sign + storage | AI Bill Scan | SMB residential PMs (under 500 units) |
| Prophia | Custom quote | 99% accuracy, hyperlinked traceability | Not designed for batch operational docs | CRE lease abstraction with audit trail |
| DocSumo | Custom quote | Lease data extraction, ASC 842 support | Utility bill + invoice processing | High-volume utility and vendor invoice processing |
| Re-Leased | Custom quote | Lease extraction + insurance doc processing | Invoice management with accounting sync | Commercial property + Xero/QBO integration |
| Veryfi | Free–$500+/mo | Not designed for lease extraction | Receipt/invoice capture, line-item detail | Free mobile receipt capture for maintenance docs |
How We Tested and Picked These Tools
We started with what property managers actually search for and discuss — scanning Reddit communities like r/PropertyManagement, r/realestateinvesting, and r/Landlord to understand the specific document pain points that drive tool searches. Then we identified the platforms that appear consistently in both search results and practitioner discussions — covering the spectrum from pure-play document extraction tools to full property management suites with built-in AI features.
Every tool passed three gates:
- Lease extraction capability. Could it extract at least five of the six critical lease fields we defined: tenant name, rent amount, security deposit, lease term, renewal dates, and late fee policy? Long documents (20+ pages) with scattered clauses are the hardest test for extraction tools, and many fail it.
- Batch operational document processing. Could it handle 10+ short documents (rent invoices, maintenance receipts, utility bills) at once and produce a single structured output? For property managers, the volume of recurring documents often exceeds the volume of leases — and batch support makes the difference between a tool that saves time and one that adds overhead.
- Integration or export practicality. Property management data does not live in isolation. It flows into PMS platforms (Yardi, AppFolio, Buildium), accounting systems (QuickBooks, Xero), or spreadsheets. If the tool could not export clean structured data or push results to a workflow, it did not make the list.
We tested with a standard set: one 35-page residential lease agreement PDF, three rent invoices from different property management software exports, two maintenance receipts photographed on a phone, and one utility bill from a regional provider — the kind of mixed document load a property manager with 80–150 units accumulates in a typical week.
ImageToTable.ai — Best for Custom Property Document Extraction
Price: $9/month (150 documents) to $29/month (1,000 documents). Free demo with no sign-up required.
ImageToTable.ai is a document data extraction tool built on a fundamentally different approach than template-based OCR. Instead of pre-defining field locations or training models on sample documents, you type the column names you want — Tenant Name, Rent Amount, Security Deposit, Lease Term, Renewal Date, Late Fee — and the AI locates each value in the document by understanding what the field means, not where it sits on the page. This is Custom Column Extraction: you define the output schema, and the AI reads any document to fill it.
This approach maps directly to the property management document challenge. A 35-page lease has the renewal clause buried in Section 27, the late fee policy on page 12, and the security deposit amount on page 4 — different tools have referred to the same value differently across those sections. Template-based tools break because no two leases use the same layout. Semantic extraction does not care about layout. During our tests, ImageToTable.ai successfully extracted all six target fields from a 35-page lease in 12 seconds — tenant name, rent amount ($2,450), security deposit ($4,900), lease term (12 months), renewal dates (auto-renewal with 60-day notice), and late fee ($50 after 5th).
For the recurring document side — the stack of 10 rent invoices and maintenance receipts — batch processing is built into the workflow from the start. Upload multiple files, define your columns once, and the AI processes all of them against the same schema. A computed column like Late Fee Applicable (Rent Due Date - Today) can flag overdue accounts during extraction. An inferred column like Document Type (options: Lease/Rent Invoice/Maintenance/Utility) automatically classifies each file so you get a sorted spreadsheet, not a mixed pile. The output lands as an Excel file ready to import into your PMS or accounting system.
The biggest trade-off: ImageToTable.ai is not a property management platform. It does not manage maintenance requests, track lease expirations, or handle rent collection. It is a focused extraction engine — you get clean structured data out of your documents, and you take that data into AppFolio, Buildium, QuickBooks, or your own workflow. For property managers who already have a PMS but need a better way to get data into it, that separation is a feature, not a limitation.
Files are processed securely and not stored.
Best for: Property managers who deal with both lease agreements and recurring operational documents and want full control over what data gets extracted and how it is organized — especially if you manage 50–500 units and already use a PMS or spreadsheet workflow.
Not ideal for: Property managers who want a complete all-in-one PMS replacement with maintenance management, rent collection, and tenant communication built in. This tool handles the extraction layer exclusively and expects you to bring the output into your existing systems.
AppFolio — Best AI-Powered All-in-One PM Platform
Price: Approximately $1.49 per unit per month (minimum 50 units). Custom pricing for larger portfolios.
AppFolio is one of the most widely adopted property management platforms in the mid-to-large residential market, and its 2026 AI features — particularly AI invoice processing — bring document extraction directly into the property management workflow. When a vendor invoice arrives (uploaded, emailed, or forwarded), AppFolio's AI reads the vendor name, date, and amount, and drafts a bill for review. The property manager approves or adjusts it, and the data lands in the accounting module without manual re-entry.
For lease documents, AppFolio provides standardized lease creation and e-signing workflows, and stores executed leases in a searchable document repository. The platform handles lease renewals, rent changes, and addenda within its lease management module, which is well-designed for the residential market. Where AppFolio falls short is on the extraction side for non-standard lease documents — if you are onboarding an existing portfolio and need to extract key fields from 200 legacy lease PDFs, AppFolio does not offer a dedicated lease abstraction tool for that. The AI invoice processing is designed for vendor bills, not for extracting tenant data or lease terms from scanned agreements.
The lease-as-contract extraction gap means that property managers migrating data into AppFolio — or handling acquisitions — often need a separate tool to extract legacy lease fields before they can enter the platform's native workflow. Once inside, AppFolio handles ongoing operations well. But getting data in from existing paper or PDF portfolios requires an extraction step AppFolio does not natively provide.
Best for: Mid-to-large residential property management firms (100+ units) that want an all-in-one PMS and need AI-assisted invoice processing for vendor bills — especially if you generate and sign most leases within AppFolio's native workflow rather than importing legacy ones.
Not ideal for: Property managers who need to extract data from existing lease PDFs (legacy portfolios, acquisitions), manage commercial or mixed-use assets, or want custom extraction beyond the standard invoice fields AppFolio's AI handles.
Yardi Voyager — Best Enterprise PM Document Management
Price: Custom quote. Enterprise licensing, typically requiring multi-year contracts.
Yardi Voyager is the enterprise standard for large property management organizations, REITs, and institutional investors. Its document management capabilities are extensive: executed leases, vendor contracts, inspection reports, and compliance documents can be stored, tagged, and retrieved through the platform. Yardi's compliance tracking module automatically flags expiring certificates of insurance, lease renewals, and regulatory filing deadlines — making it invaluable for organizations that manage 1,000+ units across multiple jurisdictions.
Yardi has invested in AI capabilities, particularly through its partnership with third-party AI platforms for lease abstraction and document processing. The platform's approach is to provide APIs and integration points rather than building extraction into the core product, which means Yardi shops typically procure a separate document extraction tool and integrate it. This works well for organizations with dedicated IT and procurement teams but creates a friction point for smaller operators who want extraction built in rather than bolted on.
The lease extraction gap is similar to AppFolio's but at enterprise scale. Yardi's native document management is about storage and compliance tracking — not about reading a PDF and populating lease fields automatically. Organizations that need to abstract 500+ legacy lease documents during a portfolio acquisition will need a purpose-built extraction tool that can integrate with Yardi's data structures rather than rely on Yardi itself to do the reading.
Best for: Large property management firms, REITs, and institutional investors managing 1,000+ units with complex compliance requirements, cross-jurisdiction portfolios, and dedicated IT support for integration work.
Not ideal for: Small-to-mid-size property managers who lack dedicated IT resources. Yardi's implementation cycle, training overhead, and licensing cost make it impractical for portfolios under 500 units.
Buildium — Best for Small-to-Mid Residential Property Managers
Price: From $58/month. Growth and premium tiers available for larger portfolios.
Buildium occupies the sweet spot between the enterprise complexity of Yardi and the limited document handling of basic landlord tools. It is purpose-built for residential property managers with 50–500 units and provides a strong balance of property management operations and document features. Buildium's AI Bill Scan extracts vendor, date, and amount data from uploaded invoices and drafts bills — similar to AppFolio's feature but available at a lower entry price point with no minimum unit count.
For lease documents, Buildium offers online lease creation, e-signatures, and secure storage. Executed leases are searchable by tenant name or property address, and the platform tracks renewal dates and lease expirations. The Lumina AI features (available in premium tiers) add AI-assisted email drafting and an accounting agent that helps with reconciliation. Where Buildium falls short is in the depth of extraction — the AI reads vendor, date, and amount from invoices but does not support custom column extraction or line-item capture. If a maintenance invoice has 15 line items, you get the total and the vendor name, not the individual parts and labor charges. For lease documents, Buildium's feature set is centered on storage and search, not on extracting specific lease clauses into structured fields.
Buildium announced integrations with external document automation tools in 2025–2026, acknowledging that its native extraction capabilities are better suited for straightforward vendor bills than for the full spectrum of property management documents. For property managers whose document needs are primarily standard invoice processing with occasional lease lookups, Buildium's built-in features may be sufficient.
Best for: Residential property managers with 50–300 units who want an affordable all-in-one platform with competent invoice processing and basic lease management — especially if most of your vendor documents are standard-format invoices.
Not ideal for: Property managers who need deep extraction from lease agreements (clause-level or custom field extraction), line-item-level invoice capture, or batch processing of mixed document types. The extraction features are adequate for basic needs but shallow for complex document workflows.
Prophia — Best for Lease Abstraction Accuracy with Audit Trail
Price: Custom quote. Prophia Essentials includes AI + human review overlay.
Prophia is a lease abstraction platform designed specifically for commercial real estate, and it approaches document extraction with a fundamentally different priority than the PMS platforms: accuracy over speed, with traceability built into every output. The platform claims 99% extraction accuracy through a combination of AI and optional human expert review, and every extracted data point is hyperlinked back to the source location in the original lease document. When you see "Rent Amount: $24,000/year" in Prophia's output, you can click to see exactly where in the lease that figure came from — critical for audit and compliance in commercial portfolios.
Prophia's lease abstraction delivers results within 5–10 minutes after document upload, covering standard fields (parties, premises, term, rent schedule, security deposit) and complex commercial provisions (escalation schedules, expense stops, CAM reconciliation terms, renewal options, and ROFR clauses). The platform integrates with Yardi and MRI, so abstracted lease data can flow directly into the PMS without manual re-entry. For commercial property managers who need to abstract complex leases and maintain a defensible audit trail, Prophia is one of the strongest options on the market.
The trade-off is scope. Prophia does not handle operational documents — invoices, maintenance receipts, utility bills, or tenant applications. It is a lease abstraction platform, not a general-purpose document extraction tool. Property managers who adopt Prophia for lease abstraction typically pair it with a separate tool for their recurring operational documents, which means managing two extraction workflows instead of one.
Best for: Commercial real estate asset managers and property teams that need high-accuracy lease abstraction with traceability to source documents — especially portfolios with complex leases (escalations, CAM, multiple amendments) where audit defensibility matters.
Not ideal for: Residential-only property managers, mixed document processing (invoices, receipts, utility bills alongside leases), or budget-constrained teams — Prophia's pricing and scope make sense for commercial lease abstraction but not for general property management document handling.
DocSumo — Best for High-Volume Utility and Vendor Invoice Processing
Price: Custom quote. Plans typically start at 2,000+ documents per month.
DocSumo is a document processing platform that has built a notable presence in property management through high-volume utility bill processing. A widely cited case study — Westland Real Estate Group, which manages over 14,000 units — reduced processing time by more than 50% using DocSumo to handle over 2,000 utility bills monthly. DocSumo's NLP-based classification automatically routes documents to appropriate workflows, and its line-item extraction from tables captures complex financial data common in utility invoices.
DocSumo also supports lease data extraction and provides ASC 842 lease accounting compliance features — making it relevant for property managers whose accounting teams need lease data in a format that satisfies audit requirements. The platform integrates with major property management systems including MRI Software, Yardi, and JD Edwards.
The practical question for property managers is volume. DocSumo's pricing and feature set are designed for organizations processing thousands of documents per month. For a property manager processing 50–200 documents monthly, the platform's capabilities exceed what is needed, and its pricing structure is not optimized for lower volumes. DocSumo also requires upfront configuration of extraction templates or rules for each document type — not a training-set level of investment, but more setup than the template-free tools on this list.
Best for: Large property management organizations with dedicated operations teams that process 1,000+ utility bills or vendor invoices per month and need automated classification, line-item extraction, and PMS integration.
Not ideal for: Small-to-mid-size property managers (under 500 units) who need a simpler setup, or teams that primarily need lease extraction rather than high-volume invoice processing.
Re-Leased (Credia Extract) — Best Commercial Lease Extraction with Accounting Sync
Price: Custom quote. Platform pricing based on portfolio size.
Re-Leased positions itself between property management and accounting — specifically for commercial and mixed-use property operators. Its Credia Extract AI handles lease abstraction, insurance document processing (pulling policy details like expiry dates and insured sums), and bulk invoice uploads. The distinctive value proposition is the accounting system integration: Credia Extract syncs extracted lease data directly to Xero, Sage Intacct, QuickBooks, and NetSuite, creating a workflow from lease PDF to accounting ledger without manual entry.
For commercial property managers, this integration depth matters because lease data (rent schedules, CAM charges, expense recoveries) does not just need to be extracted — it needs to flow into billing and accounting workflows. Re-Leased's architecture makes those fields first-class objects in the system rather than extracted text that requires re-entry. The lease abstraction handles complex rent schedules and outgoings reconciliation that residential-focused tools typically skip.
The limitation is scope and portfolio fit. Re-Leased is built for commercial and mixed-use portfolios. If you manage exclusively residential units, you are paying for features (CAM reconciliation, expense stop tracking, commercial lease abstraction) that your workflow does not use. And Re-Leased is a full platform — not an extraction tool you plug into an existing PMS. Adopting Credia Extract means adopting Re-Leased as your core system, which is a more significant operational change than adding a standalone extraction tool.
Best for: Commercial and mixed-use property operators who need lease abstraction AND direct accounting system integration in a single platform — especially teams that manage 50+ commercial leases and want the extraction-to-ledger pipeline automated.
Not ideal for: Residential-only property managers, or teams that already have a PMS they are satisfied with and just need an extraction layer to feed data into it. Re-Leased is a platform replacement, not a bolt-on tool.
Veryfi — Best Free Option for Maintenance Receipts
Price: Free forever plan (limited documents/month). Pay-as-you-go and subscription plans starting around $500/month for higher volume and API access.
Veryfi is an AI-powered receipt and document extraction platform that competes on speed and extraction depth. While it is not built for property management specifically, its generous free tier and detailed extraction make it a practical option for one of property management's highest-volume but lowest-complexity needs: capturing maintenance and repair receipts. A property manager dealing with 10–15 handyman receipts a week can photograph them through Veryfi's mobile app and get back the vendor, date, total, line items, and tax breakdown within seconds — at no cost.
Veryfi extracts more fields per receipt than consumer receipt apps (line items, tax breakdown, payment method, category) and is HIPAA, SOC 2, and GDPR compliant, which matters for property managers handling tenant-related financial documents. The free tier is genuinely usable for low-volume property managers processing 20–30 receipts a month.
The limitations are significant for broader property management use. Veryfi does not process lease agreements or extract contract clauses — it is designed for receipts and invoices. It does not offer batch processing of mixed document types. And while the free tier is generous, the jump to paid plans (starting around $500/month) is steep, making Veryfi impractical as the primary extraction tool for a growing portfolio. It works best as a supplementary tool: free for quick maintenance receipt capture during the day, with a separate system handling lease abstraction and batch invoice processing.
Best for: Property managers who need a free, fast mobile receipt capture tool for maintenance and repair documents — especially when you are in the field and want to snap a photo and have the data organized without a multi-step workflow.
Not ideal for: Lease extraction of any kind, batch processing of rent invoices or utility bills, or property managers who need to export data in custom formats for PMS import.
Which Tool Fits Your Property Management Setup?
Property management's document diversity means there is no universal best tool — but there is a best tool for each operating model. Here is how the tools line up against common property management scenarios:
You manage 50–300 residential units
Buildium for the all-in-one platform, paired with ImageToTable.ai for extracting data from legacy lease PDFs or custom operational document workflows. Buildium handles your invoicing and lease storage; ImageToTable.ai handles the extraction of fields Buildium's native AI does not support.
You manage 300+ residential units with a PMS
If you are on AppFolio, use its AI invoice processing for vendor bills and pair ImageToTable.ai or DocSumo for lease abstraction and batch processing of documents AppFolio does not natively extract. Veryfi on the free tier for field-captured maintenance receipts.
You are a commercial property manager
Prophia or Re-Leased depending on whether your priority is audit-grade lease abstraction (Prophia) or end-to-end platform with accounting integration (Re-Leased). Pair with Veryfi or ImageToTable.ai for operational document capture.
You manage 1,000+ units (enterprise)
Yardi Voyager for core operations and compliance. Add DocSumo for high-volume utility and invoice processing, and Prophia or ImageToTable.ai for lease abstraction depending on whether your portfolio is commercial or residential.
You are a small landlord (10–50 units)
ImageToTable.ai for everything — leases, rent receipts, maintenance docs — all extracted into one spreadsheet you control. At $9/month, it costs less than a single hour of manual data entry. Veryfi's free tier for mobile receipt capture when you are at the property site.
You process 1,000+ utility bills monthly
DocSumo is purpose-built for this volume. The NLP classification and line-item extraction from complex utility invoices will save more time than any general-purpose extraction tool at this scale.
Not sure which PMS or tool stack fits your portfolio? Our construction document extraction roundup covers a related industry with similar document diversity, and our free extraction tools guide covers budget-friendly alternatives for smaller portfolios.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can a document extraction tool handle both lease agreements and maintenance receipts?
It depends on the tool. Most tools on this list specialize in either long-form lease extraction (Prophia, Re-Leased) or short-document receipt/invoice processing (Veryfi, DocSumo's invoice workflow, AppFolio's bill scan). ImageToTable.ai is the only tool we tested that handles both categories effectively in a single workflow, because its semantic extraction does not require different configurations for different document lengths or types — you define the columns once, and the AI adapts to the document. For the other tools, plan on using a lease-focused tool for lease abstraction and a separate tool for operational document processing.
What lease fields are hardest for AI to extract?
In our testing, three fields consistently tripped up extraction tools: (1) Late fee policy — typically buried in a "Delinquency" or "Default" section on page 15+ of a 30-page lease, sometimes cross-referenced to a separate schedule; (2) Renewal terms — often conditional ("automatically renews unless 60-day notice given") rather than a simple date, requiring the AI to understand the condition-output relationship; (3) Security deposit terms — the amount may be stated in Section 1 but the holding conditions (interest-bearing account, permitted deductions) are scattered across multiple sections. Tools that rely on position-based extraction (looking for a field in the same location on every page) fail on these. Semantic extraction handles them because the AI looks for what the field means, not where it appears.
Do I need to keep paper leases after extracting the data?
The IRS recommends retaining digital copies of rental-related documents for at least three years after the tax return filing date (IRS Publication 527). Scanned or photographed copies are acceptable as documentary evidence provided they are legible and retrievable. State landlord-tenant laws may impose additional record-keeping requirements — for example, some states require landlords to retain security deposit records for a specific period after a tenant vacates. If you are using a tool that stores the original document alongside the extracted data (most account-based tools do), the digital copy satisfies both IRS and state documentation standards.
How many hours does document extraction save a property manager per month?
Based on our testing and industry benchmarks from IREM property management studies, manual lease data entry averages 25–45 minutes per lease agreement for a 20-page document, and 3–5 minutes per invoice or receipt for manual data entry. For a property manager handling 5 new leases and 150 recurring operational documents per month, that translates to roughly 12–18 hours of manual data entry. A well-configured extraction tool reduces that to under 2 hours — including verification time. The range is wide because it depends on document quality (scanned PDFs vs. native digital), lease complexity (standard residential vs. commercial with CAM clauses), and how cleanly the extracted data maps to your PMS fields.
Can extraction tools handle tenant applications and credit reports?
Most general-purpose extraction tools can process tenant application forms (standardized fields like name, employment, income, references) because these follow relatively consistent layouts. Credit reports and background check documents are more challenging because they come from different bureaus (TransUnion, Experian, Equifax) with different formats and often contain disclaimers and small-print text that confuses standard OCR. Tools using vision-based AI (rather than template-based OCR) handle this variation better. However, tenant screening data falls under FCRA (Fair Credit Reporting Act) regulations — if you use extracted data to make leasing decisions, the tool must ensure data accuracy and provide consumer disclosure mechanisms. None of the tools on this list are purpose-built for FCRA-compliant tenant screening, so use extracted data as a reference input rather than a decision-making dataset.
What about Fair Housing Act compliance with automated lease extraction?
The Fair Housing Act (42 U.S. Code § 3601–3619) prohibits discrimination in housing-related transactions based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, familial status, or disability. Document extraction tools are data processing systems — they do not make leasing decisions — so the risk is not in the extraction itself but in how you use the data downstream. A property manager who uses extracted tenant application data to automate approval or rejection decisions would need to ensure the automated decision-making process does not produce discriminatory outcomes. As a best practice, use extraction tools for operational data (lease terms, rent amounts, renewal dates, invoice processing) rather than for automated tenant screening decisions unless you have validated the tool for FCRA and Fair Housing compliance.
Can I extract lease data directly into AppFolio or Yardi?
None of the pure extraction tools on this list offer one-click direct integration to AppFolio or Yardi, because those PMS platforms have proprietary data structures. The standard workflow is: extract lease data to a structured spreadsheet (Excel or CSV), map the columns to your PMS import template, and import. Some platforms — particularly Prophia (Yardi/MRI integration) and Re-Leased (Xero/QBO/NetSuite) — offer direct data pushes to specific systems. For ImageToTable.ai and DocSumo, the workflow is export-to-spreadsheet followed by PMS import, which takes 5–10 minutes of mapping time per batch. For property managers processing fewer than 20 leases per month, that mapping overhead is negligible compared to the hours saved in manual extraction.
The property managers who save the most time are not the ones with the most expensive tool. They are the ones who match the tool to how their documents actually arrive — one batch of leases and a steady stream of everything else.
Try ImageToTable.ai on a lease or a rent receipt — no sign-up, no credit card. If the extraction matches your workflow, the $9/month plan keeps it there. If it does not, you are out nothing but the 10 seconds it took to upload.
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