How do I scan my expense and bill receipts?

Receipt scanning is provided by one of our partners, Sensibill, to allow you to keep track of your expense receipts by scanning them while you’re on the go and reviewing them later in your Uploads. Using Optical Character Recognition (OCR), details are automatically extracted from the scanned documents and filled out for you when reviewing so you can quickly create expenses and bills.

 

Receipt Scanning is only available for users in Canada, United States, and United Kingdom, on trials as well as Plus, Premium and Select plans only. Ensure the correct country is selected in Basic Information settings. In addition, automatic capture of multi-line items on a bill is only available for Select plans.

 

• Upload a Document
• Review a Document
  • Additional Uploads Actions
• Send by Email
• FAQs

 

Upload a Document

There are multiple ways to upload your expense and bill receipts: 

• Select the Expenses section, then select the Uploads sub-section underneath, and select the Upload Documents button or drag and drop the file into the Uploads area
  
• Select the Expenses section, then select the down arrow next to the New Expense button, and select Upload Receipt
• Select the Expenses section, then select the Bills sub-section underneath, select the down arrow next to the New Bill button, and select Upload Bill

From there, choose your JPEG, PNG or PDF files to upload. It takes anywhere between 30 minutes to several hours for the document to be scanned, depending on image type and number of files.


Once the documents are scanned, you can find them in the Uploads sub-section, where they'll remain indefinitely until made into an expense, bill, or deleted.

 

Review a Document

 

Automatic capture of multi-line items on a bill is only available for Select plans.

 

Access all scanned documents in the Uploads section and begin reviewing them with the below steps:

1. Select the Expenses section
2. Then select the Uploads sub-section underneath
   
3. Select Review next to any scanned document
   
4. If your account has any expenses or bills that match the amount, currency and is within 0-2 days of the date of your uploaded document, the document being reviewed will be on the Attach (#) sub-tab by default
   
   1. For Potential Matches in the Attach (#) sub-tab, select the expense or bill you want to attach the document to
      
   2. Then select the Attach button and the expense or bill will be updated with this new receipt attached to it
5. If your account has no matching expenses or bills, the document being reviewed will be on the Create New sub-tab by default
   
   
   1. Under Document Type, choose between Expense or Bill
      1. For an expense, review any populated fields in the Expense Details and ensure they are correct, or if missing, add them in
         
      2. If needed, include details in the Add description field
      3. If needed, select the More Actions button and under Assign to Client/Project, select a client or project
   2. For a bill, review any populated fields in the bills details and bill item(s) and ensure they are correct, or if missing, add them in
      
      1. If needed, select Add bill item to add additional lines to your bill
   3. Select Create and a new expense or bill will be created with this document attached as a receipt. The document will also be moved out of your Uploads into the list of expenses or list of bills.

 

While reviewing a scanned document, select either:

• Download - Use the down arrow button to download a copy of the document
• Zoom - Use the minus and plus buttons to zoom in and out of the document while you’re looking over the details

 

Uploads Actions

While on the Uploads section, you can delete individual or multiple documents in bulk using either option:

• Hover over any document and select the trash can icon to quickly delete the document
• Check off multiple boxes, select Bulk Actions, and then select Delete to delete several documents in bulk

 

Send by Email

Email or forward documents to your unique email address and these documents will automatically be scanned for you to review in your Uploads later. To find your unique email address for email forwarding, use the below steps:

1. Select the Expenses section
2. Then select the Uploads sub-section underneath
3. In the Uploads section, select Upload Documents and select Send by Email
   
   
4. Select Copy to copy the unique email address, and paste it in your preferred email client as a new contact for future use.
   

 

Notes:

• Only one document can be emailed at a time, multiple attachments are not supported
• The document must be in the body as an inline JPEG, PNG, or PDF image, or attachment of the email, not in a link to download outside of the email
• It can take anywhere between 30 minutes to several hours after emailing for the document to be scanned and ready to review in the Uploads section

 

FAQs

Why did my document not scan successfully?
Receipt scanning depends on having a clean and well-lit photo to extract information from. There are several reasons why the scan may fail:

• Incorrect file type - Only JPEG, PNG and PDFs are accepted file formats
• Temporary error - Try uploading the document again at a different time
• Receipt is blurry - Ensure camera isn’t shaking or too far away from receipt
• Receipt is too crumpled - Try to smooth out the wrinkles and ensure receipt is flat as possible
• Receipt is too faded - The print ink may have faded, try taking the photo of the receipt with a higher contrast
• Receipt is taken on light background or odd angle - Try a darker background, or arrange the receipt so edges align with the screen of your camera’s preview image