Scanning receipts with a mobile app means photographing a receipt the moment you get it, so the data is read and the document is filed before the paper has a chance to disappear. That timing is the whole trick: a receipt photographed at the counter is a booking, and one found in a coat pocket in March is a problem. In this article you can read why receipts have to be kept at all, how the app process runs and what to look for when choosing one.
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Why keep receipts at all?
A receipt is evidence that an expense was a business expense. That evidence is what a tax inspector asks for, what an auditor samples and what a budget holder relies on when signing off a claim. Retention periods are set per country and run to several years in most of Europe, and a digital copy is accepted as long as it stays readable and complete. Check the term that applies where your company is registered, because the requirement is about the period and the readability rather than about paper.
The problem with paper
In plenty of organisations receipts are still collected on paper and handed in at the end of the month, which creates three problems at once. Thermal paper fades, so a fuel receipt from six weeks ago can be unreadable exactly when you need it. Receipts go missing, and a missing receipt means an expense that cannot be claimed or a VAT amount that cannot be reclaimed. And the finance team gets a stack at month end rather than a flow through the month, which turns a small task into a peak.
How scanning with an app works
1. Photograph it on the spot
The employee photographs the receipt at the counter, and the app crops and straightens the image. Doing it immediately is what makes the rest work, because a receipt that is never carried around is never lost or faded. The paper can go in the bin once the digital copy is stored, subject to the retention rules in your country.
2. The data is read
Character recognition and self-learning models pull out the supplier, the date, the total and the VAT, and propose a general ledger account. Receipts are harder than invoices: they are small, often creased, sometimes handwritten, and a scribbled total will need a correction. Expect a check rather than blind trust on this document type.
3. Approval, if you want it
A receipt can travel an approval route past a budget holder, either straight after scanning or after the entry has been prepared, depending on how your organisation works. Reminders go to the approver rather than to you, which is what stops a claim from waiting three weeks on a manager who was on holiday.
4. Into the books and the archive
After the check the journal entry goes to your accounting package with the image attached, and the receipt stays searchable in the archive with an audit trail. Reimbursing the employee happens through your creditors administration or your payroll process, not in the scanning app.
What to look for in a receipts app
- A connection to your accounting package. Without it the app produces images that somebody still has to enter, which is the work you were trying to remove.
- Users included. If every colleague who submits a receipt costs a licence, adoption stalls and receipts come in by e-mail again.
- An archive, not just a mailbox. The image has to stay retrievable for the retention period, with the entry it belongs to.
- Approval built in. A separate approval tool means two systems and two places to look.
Receipts in TriFact365
Colleagues photograph a receipt in the app, the data is read and a booking proposal is prepared, and after your check the journal entry goes to your accounting package with the image attached. Approval routes and push reminders are part of the same environment, and users are not counted per person. What TriFact365 does not do is mileage registration, company card reconciliation, policy checks against a spending limit or the reimbursement itself; those sit in your expense policy and your payment process. Read more about the app for photographing receipts, about expense claims from submission to journal entry, or about approval routes for invoices.
Frequently asked questions
In most European countries a digital copy is accepted for the statutory retention period, as long as it stays readable and complete. Retention terms and conditions differ per country, so confirm what applies to your administration with your accountant before you clear out the shoebox.
Less accurate than on invoices, and that is inherent to the document. Receipts are small, often creased and sometimes handwritten. A printed supermarket or fuel receipt reads well; a handwritten total will need a correction.
Yes. A receipt can travel an approval route past a budget holder, either straight after scanning or after the entry has been prepared. Push notifications and e-mail reminders go to the approver, so nobody has to chase.
No. The claim becomes a cost entry on the employee as a creditor, and the reimbursement runs through your creditors administration or your payroll process. The app handles the document and the entry, not the payment.
A connection to your accounting package, so the data does not have to be entered again; users included rather than charged per person, so colleagues actually use it; and an archive that keeps the image retrievable with the entry it belongs to.
