Chasing leads, brainstorming, kicking off an exciting project… There’s no shortage of work you’d rather be doing than tracking Expenses and Bills every month (we’ve all been there). And if you’re a bigger company, you might even be manually entering data for hundreds of receipts. The more time you sink into admin tasks, the less time you have to grow your business.
To help lighten your workload, FreshBooks accounting software now automatically captures the merchant, totals, and taxes from a receipt when you upload a photo of it. It’s called Digital Bills and Receipt Scanner and it will help you stay organized, save time, and make expense management easier than ever.
It is a receipt scanner feature that automatically captures the data from an expenses receipt when you, or an employee, uploads a photo of it. This helps minimize human data entry error and saves you tons of time every month.
Note: This feature is available on Plus and Premium plans—click here to upgrade.
Great question! An expenses receipt is any receipt received for a purchase of something work related, made by you, an employee, or contractor (aka business expenses). Expenses receipts should be kept as evidence of the purchase, so it can be claimed (and so it’s properly tracked and reflected on future Expense Reports).
Note: FreshBooks is not an online receipt maker, it just allows you to capture data from existing receipts.
When you upload a photo of a receipt or bill, or scan receipts from your phone, FreshBooks automatically captures and logs the merchant (or vendor), cost totals, and taxes. All you have to do is review and confirm it!
And for Select users, the scanner will automatically capture individual bill line items, not just a bills total.
Simple! Here’s how to use the receipt scanner to create an Expense:
Here’s what it looks like in-app:
For Bills, repeat the steps above, starting from the Bills sub-section of the Expenses tab. You can also upload receipts or bills through the new Uploads page, which is also under the Expenses tab.
Here’s what it looks like in-app:
Note: Your newly scanned receipts will be housed in your Uploads page. Once you’ve reviewed the data, the documents will be moved into the Expenses or Bills section.
Absolutely! The FreshBooks app on iOS or Android will automatically capture the merchant, totals, and taxes from receipts you take a photo of (which makes us a preferred expense solution for tradespeople). To get started:
And that’s it! The receipt will be added as an expense in your account.
It helps streamline your record-keeping process by:
When you, or an employee, submits business expenses using the digital scanner, it will show up as an expense in your account. The Expense Report then breaks down all of your Expenses into detail, including any applicable taxes.
To run one, just:
To adjust your view of the Expense Report, click on Filters under Settings. From there, you can change:
This depends on where you live, so be sure to consult your local governing body. But typically a tax deductible expense is defined as a cost you incur for the sole purpose of earning business income.
With FreshBooks, you can track both your business expenses and personal expenses to keep an eye on all your spending. And with unlimited receipt scanning, you can easily take a picture of paper receipts and then categorize them within your account.
For example, if you go out for lunch with a client, be sure to keep the restaurant receipt with key details like the vendor’s name and the date. But if you went for lunch on the way to a job site, it may not be considered a deductible expense.
But if you’re still unsure, working with an accountant is a great way to make sure all expenses are tracked properly for tax purposes. They will help you track business expenses properly, so you can spend stress free.
If you’re on a Plus, Premium, or Select plan, you can also forward email receipts to a dedicated email and FreshBooks will automatically scan the vendor, merchant, and totals for your review.
To find your unique email:
And that’s it. All you have to do is forward emails to this address and we’ll do the rest.
If you have any questions about this feature, don’t hesitate to contact our support team here!