Keeping receipts in a shoebox is a hassle, unless your shoebox is easy to search. Having an app quickly search your shoebox for receipts can be an even bigger help. These apps have insight from the IRS into what you’re allowed to deduct, and can tag your purchases as business expenses.
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Best Apps For Keeping Track Of Receipts
Receipt scanning apps photograph and create digital versions of your receipts, which you can easily retrieve from a digital filing system.
Most of them work roughly the same way. You download them onto your phone, use them to take pictures of your receipts, and then the app’s OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology digitizes all of the text and numbers on those receipts and stores digital versions of them in a filing system.
These “smart receipts” are harder to lose and easier to retrieve, because you can quickly search for them with keywords and filters.
Why should I download one?
Digitizing your receipts removes a lot of the hassle involved in your recordkeeping operation. Regularly scanning and storing your receipts means that:
When tax time comes, you won’t spend hours sorting through a pile of crumpled receipts wondering whether that $13 parking charge was for a client meeting or a date.
You won’t miss any valuable tax write-offs.
You’ll know exactly where your money is going every month—so you can cut spending where it’s getting out of hand.
Due to the Period of Limitations, the IRS also technically requires you to hold on to receipts for significant expenses (i.e. larger than $75) for at least three years.
Digitizing your records is also a great way to avoid accidentally tossing them in a move or an overzealous fit of spring cleaning. Plus, let’s not forget that paper records can fade, and are susceptible to damage. Telling the IRS that “the dog ate my tax records” simply won’t fly.
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What are the best receipt-scanning apps?
Lots of accounting and expense tracking apps offer digital scanning capabilities, but here we’ll focus on the most popular solutions: QuickBooks, Expensify, Bench, Receipt Bank, and business record scanners.
QuickBooks: For the accounting-savvy business
QuickBooks offers a receipt-scanning function that plugs into the rest of the app’s powerful suite of accounting tools, allowing you to scan receipts, create expense reports, do your bookkeeping and create financial reports and statements all in one dashboard.
QuickBooks has more features than any other expense trackers in this list, and also requires the most knowledge, time, and effort to operate. If you’re unfamiliar with accounting, you might find QuickBooks frustrating.
But if you’re a QuickBooks pro, have a dedicated admin employee who’s willing to learn, and already use QuickBooks for your accounting, it’s definitely a worthy option.
Platforms: Android, iOS, web browser
Price: Starts at $12/month
Expensify: For the business traveller
If you work remotely or regularly have meetings in different parts of the world, you know post-trip expense tracking is a nightmare. Using Expensify means you can stop stuffing receipts into your luggage while you’re on the go. Snap pictures of your paper receipts with your mobile device, submit and be done with them.
Expensify also automatically imports receipts from ridesharing services like Uber and Airbnb, and also has a function for managing mileage tracking. Use the company credit card a lot? Expensify will import those expenses automatically from your card so you don’t have to go through your statements at the end of each trip. If you’re looking for an app for tracking employee travel expenses, it’s hard to beat Expensify.
Platforms: Android, iOS (iPhone), web browser
Price: Starts at $4.99/month
Receipt Bank: if you’ve got lots of receipts
Receipt Bank lets you digitize and store your receipts in pretty much any way imaginable. You can do it using a mobile app, via web browser, via email, or automatically by hooking your credit card up to the app. It also automatically imports receipts from PayPal and Dropbox, and lets you take photos of multiple receipts at a time.
Receipt Bank also integrates with most popular accounting software, including Xero, QuickBooks, FreshBooks and Sage One.
The only downside to Receipt Bank is that it won’t let you manually input receipt information, which can be a hassle if you don’t have the receipt in front of you.
But if you’re looking for an app that can ingest a lot of receipts quickly, in every way imaginable, Receipt Bank is the app for you.
Platforms: Android, iOS (iPhone)
Price: $14.99.month
The Kodak Alaris: for the high-volume scanner
If you’ve got a large or quickly-growing business with a lot of paperwork to deal with, you might consider investing in a dedicated business document scanner, like the Kodak Alaris.
These machines can process large numbers of documents at once. And they do more than just receipts: they can scan and digitize invoices, letters, legal documents, and anything else you might want to store away for later. The Alaris in particular can also take care of the filing process for you, saving you hours of work.
Platforms: Desktop
Price: Starts at $403.49 USD
Bench: For hands-off expense tracking and bookkeeping
Is money management and accounting for your small business not really your thing? Bench can take it off your hands entirely.
Categorizing your receipts can be a pain, but when you work with Bench, we manage that for you. You can use us alongside of your preferred receipt storage app, and we’ll take care of your business bookkeeping by importing, reviewing, and categorizing all of your expenses every month.
We’ll help you track your expenses and send you financial reports monthly so you can understand your finances better than ever. Then at tax time, we work with your accountant to deliver all the financial info they need to file your taxes.
Best free receipt app 2021
- SAP Concur Mobile App
Best for: Corporate expenses
Apps: iOS | Android
Price: Request a quote
SAP Concur is a well-known expense management system that serves businesses’ expense and reimbursement needs. For companies with large teams that submit regular expense reports, the Concur mobile app serves as a receipt scanner, expense report system, mileage tracker, and more.
Manual entry of receipts isn’t required, simply snap a photo of the document and upload it to the system. The app stores the receipts online and stores them by date, so they’re always accessible. Scanning a receipt takes just a few seconds with the Concur mobile app and uploads instantly. Storage capacity is determined based on your business’s individual needs, so reach out to the Concur sales team for a detailed quote.
SAP Concur Mobile App Receipt scanner
Image Source
- Expensify
Best for: An all-around receipt scanning app
Apps: iOS | Android
Price: Starting at $4.99
Expensify is a cloud-based app for both iOS and Android. It’s a receipt management tool that connects with Expensify tools for expense reporting. This receipt scanner is portable, online, and cloud-based so you won’t have to worry about the expense reports or receipt files taking up space on your device. You can use your smartphone camera to take a photo of the receipt, the app will automatically pull out the charges. From there, you can associate the charge with an expense report.
Keep in mind that sometimes the receipt scanner is unable to perfectly capture the details of your receipt. Be sure to double-check the expenses to make sure the receipt charges are added accurately.
Expensify Reciept Scanner
Image Source
- Receipts by Wave
Best for: Freelancers and small business owners
Apps: iOS | Android
Price: Paid plans at 2.9% + $0.30 cents per transaction per use
Receipts by Wave is a receipt tracking app that can be used by small business owners (with about 10 employees) to stay on top of receipts. It syncs with your cloud-based expense reporting software that can be accessed both on mobile and from your computer. One main perk of this tool is that you can use it for free — making this receipt scanner option ideal for small businesses and freelancers just starting out.
Your data can sync with the Wave Accounting app so you can stay on top of your spending. You can also export the data to a variety of accounting tools, such as QuickBooks and Excel if need be. Although this system doesn’t yet support two-factor authentication, all your receipts are scanned directly into your cloud storage so you have secure access to them when you need them.
Receipts by wave receipt scanner
- NeatDesk
Best for: Bulk scanning
Price: $442
NetDesk is a software/hardware combo that’s perfect for scanning picture-perfect receipts. You’ll need both the software and scanner together to get the best use of this product, but according to the Amazon reviews, it’s well worth it.
This receipt scanner reads and extracts information from whatever you scan. And at 24 pages per minute — it’ll read your documents faster than you can. It can scan up to 50 pages at once and extracts important information for organized digital filing. NeatDesk exports every document to the NeatDesk cloud which comes with the software. Send your scanned receipts directly to programs like Excel, Turbotax, H&R Block tax software, and Outlook, just to name a few.
Unfortunately, this receipt scanner isn’t the easiest to take with you on the go, so keep that in mind if you choose to purchase it.
NeatDesk Receipt Scanner
- NeatReceipts
Best for: Team collaboration
Apps: iOS | Android
Price: Starting at $27 per month
If you need to share your scanned expense receipts with a team of people or have them reviewed by a manager, this app is for you. The neat receipts mobile app is available for iOS and Android users, and your scans are synced across devices. You can use this app anywhere you have access to wifi so it’s remote-friendly.
Simply use the tool to snap a photo of your receipt whether you’re in the office, at home, or offsite, and it’ll recognize the text on the document. From there, you can create expense reports and even itemized expense lists. NeatReceipts supports all major file types including PDF, JPG, PNG, TIFF, and HTML.
You’ll even save time in your workflow as NeatReceipts integrates with the major account software tools and can be synced to your cloud storage system — that means your documents can be uploaded exactly where you want them in just one click.
NeatReceipts Receipt Scanner
- Evernote Scannable
Best for: iOS users
Apps: iOS
Price: Free
iPhone or iPad users, there’s a mobile receipt scanner just for you. You’ve probably heard of Evernote as an amazing note taking app, but it’s a multipurpose tool that can be used for even more organization needs. Just like most mobile scanners in this list, you have the ability to preview the scan, discard, or retake the photo if the first image isn’t clear enough. The receipts will be saved to Evernote’s cloud-based app, and can be accessed online from anywhere.
But here’s where Evernote stands out from the rest: You can edit your scanned receipts right in the app. Add text, audio, and even images to your scanned documents to make them as personalized as possible. This lets you organize your receipts using a criteria you set, not one that is determined by the Evernote storage system.
Best of all, you can search your scanned documents and they’ll appear in real-time as you type. How’s that for speed, online access, and storage?
Evernote receipt scanner
- Shoeboxed
Best for: Tax season
Apps: iOS | Android
Price: Starting at $18 per month
Sole proprietors, LLC holders, and freelancers have the ability to write off expenses when it’s time to file taxes, but how do you know what to expense? If you’re anything like most people, the short answer is to track everything and keep each receipt — then at tax time, sort through it all with your accountant. What a mess.
The Shoeboxed app allows you to scan receipts and keep track of your mileage for tax reporting purposes. It also gives you the ability to specify which expenses are deductible — making it the ideal tool for tax time.
Create expense reports directly within the app and export them to your colleagues or tax preparer right from your phone. The app works quickly — it takes just as long as snapping a photo and can handle different report types. You’ll finally get those receipts off your desk and into action with Shoeboxed.
Shoebox Receipt scanner
- Veryfi Core
Best for: Data privacy
Apps: iOS | Android
Price: Starting at $13.75 per active user per month
If you deal with sensitive customer data or medical information, you’ll need a receipt scanner that is GDPR and HIPAA compliant. Veryfi Core gives you the ability to automate data entry of receipts and expenses that are sensitive in nature with best-in-class security features. It also automates tax coding and categorization to make tax day a little easier for you and your accountant.
Speed isn’t an issue for the Veryfi app. In just three seconds, it extracts data from your scanned receipt so you can organize and save it quickly. Your data can be accessed from anywhere, and you can collaborate with your team at any time.
For an all-encompassing experience, Veryfi works seamlessly with Logbook, Core, and Timesheets so all your important data is stored in one place.
Veryfi Core Receipt scanner
- Smart Receipts
Best for: Custom reports
Apps: iOS | Android
Price: Free
No one’s favorite part of the day is scanning receipts so Smart Receipts makes this task a little less mundane. Designed by a travel consultant, this receipt scanning app was built with speed, portability, and accessibility in mind.
Once you’ve scanned your receipts into Smart Receipts, you can create customizable PDF, CSV, and ZIP reports without spending minutes selecting the file type for each scanned document. When you’re ready to organize your scanned receipts, you’ll find 20 different default data types to sort and filter by (e.g. dates, price, receipt categories, payment methods, and more.)
Another unique feature of Smart Receipts is its white labeling services. With these services, your company can create a customized expense reporting app for your users or customers.
Smart Receipts Receipt Scanner
- Vupoint ST470
Best for: An on-the-go, portable scanner
Price: $119.99
For crisp scans of important receipts and documents, the ability to scan high dpi (dots per image) is required. Vupoint ST470 scans up to 1200 dpi with a built-in color LCD panel to preview scans to ensure they’re perfectly clear.
One of the best features of this scanner is its 2-in-1 capability and portability. It functions as a desktop scanner, but it also has a detachable wand you can use to scan. This wand is the perfect size to take with you on the go, and it even comes with its own carrying case.
While the Vupoint ST470 doesn’t give you the ability to connect to cloud services, it does have a micro SD card you can use to save your receipts on the go.
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