How to digitize a shoebox of receipts

Most people with a box of receipts don't have a receipt problem, they have a backlog problem. Hundreds of receipts sitting in a box, a folder that won't close, and tax time getting closer. Photographing them one at a time with an app that wants one receipt per picture is the reason the box never gets done.

Bulk Receipt Scanner reads several receipts in one photo and gives each one back as its own record. One photo holds up to 8 receipts and one batch takes up to 15 photos, so a single batch can cover up to 120 receipts. A shoebox becomes a handful of sittings.

Step 1: Pull out the faded ones first

Most store receipts are printed on thermal paper, which fades with heat, light and time. The ones that rode around in a car may already be pale, and every week they get harder to read, for a person and for a scanner. So before you sort anything, pull out anything that's starting to fade and scan those first. A receipt that's still faint but legible today can be read; one that has faded to a blank white strip has nothing left on it to read, and no tool can bring the ink back.

Step 2: Rough-sort, don't perfect-sort

You don't need the box in order before you start. A rough sort helps you review in sensible chunks:

• By year, if the box spans several tax years, so each year's receipts stay together.
• By month inside the year, if it's easy. If it isn't, skip it: every receipt keeps its own date, and your receipts list sorts by date for you afterwards.
• Set aside anything that isn't a receipt: bank slips, coupons and order confirmations. A coupon in the same photo prints its own dates, and it's one more thing to check.

Step 3: Lay them out and take the photo

• Use a plain, dark surface under white receipts, so the edges stand out.
• Leave a little space between receipts. Receipts that overlap or touch can be read as one.
• Flatten curled receipts under a book first, and keep each one fully in the frame, evenly lit.
• Hold the phone straight above. Each receipt is found and turned upright on its own, even sideways or upside down.
• Put fewer long receipts in a photo. 8 short receipts fit easily; long grocery receipts read best two or three to a photo.

Use your phone's camera in the browser, or choose photos from your camera roll or computer. iPhone photos (HEIC), JPEG, PNG and WebP all work. More on layout: scan multiple receipts in one photo .

Step 4: Work in batches

Add up to 15 photos to a batch, start the scan, and review that batch before you start the next. One batch, one review, one save is a steady rhythm, and it means a mistake is caught while the paper is still on the table in front of you.

When the batch comes back, count. The scanner tells you how many receipts it found; compare that with the receipts you laid out. A photo of several receipts can occasionally miss one or split one into two, and the paper is right there to check against.

What the scanner does with each receipt

1. Finds it and cuts it out. Each receipt in the photo is located and shown as its own upright image beside its details.
2. Reads it. Vendor, date, subtotal, tax, total and payment method, every line item with its quantity and price, and the amount tendered and change due when the receipt prints them.
3. Checks the arithmetic. Line items against the subtotal, subtotal plus tax against the total, and the amount tendered against the total plus any change. When something doesn't agree, the receipt is flagged. It never quietly changes a number to make the sums work.
4. Flags what it's unsure of. Fields it read with less confidence are marked in the review. In your account, a second, independent check looks again at each receipt's date and money fields, and if it thinks a figure may be wrong, it says so beside that field and highlights the spot on the receipt image.
5. Flags possible duplicates. If a receipt matches one you've already saved, with the same vendor, date, total and currency, it's marked as a possible duplicate, which matters when the same receipt turns up in the box twice.

Step 5: Review, fix and save

Check every receipt before you save it. The flags point you at the figures most worth a second look, but they are not a promise that everything unflagged is right; any reader can misread a receipt.

• Correct anything by hand. Every field is editable, and line items can be added, changed or removed.
• Reread one receipt. The Reread button reads that one receipt again without rescanning the rest of the photo, up to 3 times per receipt.
• Settle duplicates. Compare a possible duplicate side by side with the receipt it matches, then keep it or mark it as not a duplicate.

Then save the batch, put that paper aside, and lay out the next one.

What comes out

Once the box is through, every receipt is in your receipts list, with its photo, searchable and sortable by date or amount. From there:

• Export a CSV, on any plan: a QuickBooks-ready file in the three-column layout QuickBooks Online accepts when you upload transactions from a file, a general spreadsheet file with one row per receipt (date, vendor, subtotal, tax, total, category, payment method and receipt number), or a detailed file with one row per line item. You can export the whole list or just the filtered view.
• Send to QuickBooks Online, on a paid plan: each receipt goes in as an expense with its receipt image attached, and a receipt that was already sent is skipped.

The photos are kept with the receipts they came from. A free account keeps them for at least 90 days; on a paid plan they're kept for as long as you subscribe and for a grace period after.

The honest limits

• Ink that's gone can't be read. If a field can't be made out, the scanner leaves it blank rather than filling in a guess, and fields it was unsure of are flagged. If a receipt has faded to nothing, it may not be found at all. Keep the paper for anything that matters until you've checked the record.
• Blanks need filling before QuickBooks. A receipt with no date or no total isn't sent to QuickBooks until you add them. Receipts in a currency other than US dollars, and refunds with a negative total, aren't sent to QuickBooks either; they still export to CSV.
• A big box needs the paid plan or patience. A free account scans 20 photos a month. Individual, at $19/month, has no monthly photo limit.

Questions about plans? See pricing .