Receipts are a necessary evil of modern life. It’s how you know your expenses, it’s how you track your warranty information, and it’s how you keep tabs on your budget. But no one wants to deal with the clutter of paper receipts in their wallet or purse. That’s why these receipt apps will scan photos of your receipts and help you track all the information you need.
It’s important to note that several receipt management apps double as expense trackers, but you can also stick with traditional receipt managers. The main idea here is not to manually add data about your expenses, but to make your applications automatically obtain this data by clicking on photos of receipts, scanning your emails or reading SMS banks and credit cards. This should feel like the least effort possible.
1. Mr. Receipt (Android, iOS): Best Free Receipt Scanner & Tracker
Mr. Receipt, or MrReceipt, is as good as a receipt manager and tracking app can get. It has all the desired features and performs them flawlessly. And you don’t need the premium version for anything other than exporting all your data as a CSV file.
When you receive a new receipt, take a picture of it with the Mr. Receipt app or upload a PDF from your saved files. The app will instantly recognize the store name, total bill and date on the receipt. You can add additional details manually, like store name, expense category (shopping, food, medical, etc.), and other details like warranty date.
With this data, Mr. Receipt will also track your spending in different categories and create a quick dashboard showing where and what you spent in monthly breakdowns. It will also remind you of warranty end dates if you wish. It is truly one of the best receipt apps for scanning, tracking, and managing bills.
To download: Mr. Receipt for Android | iOS (Free)
2. Itemize (Android, iOS): The Most Powerful Receipt Scanner and Tracker
It’s surprising that Itemize is free considering its power as a scanner, tracker, and receipt manager. It’s also easy to use, letting you take photos of receipts directly or even upload them from your gallery. We tested if it works with screenshots of email receipts and Itemize passed with flying colors.
Like Mr. Receipt, Itemize can recognize photo text and will fill in the basic details you need on the receipt, like date, payment, and merchant. You can then add more details as needed. The cool part is that Itemize also lets you sort receipts by any of them in the main dashboard itself, so you can quickly see all of your Uber receipts or all of your Uber expenses. some day.
In terms of statistics and reports, Itemize outclasses Mr. Receipt. You can set custom date ranges to get reports on your expenses during that period or explore categories to find specific invoice types.
We would have recommended Itemize over Mr. Receipt, but it appears the app is no longer actively developed. Features such as email import no longer work, and it finds no mention on the official Itemize website. Nonetheless, it’s a great app.
To download: Detail for Android | iOS (Free)
3. OneNote (Web, Android, iOS): Take receipt photos and search text from images
We at MakeUseOf are big fans of all you can do with Microsoft OneNote. With recent improvements in its OCR algorithms for reading text from images, it has become our favorite recommendation as a receipt management app for the lazy.
Here’s how it works. First, create a folder called Received in Microsoft OneNote. Then take a photo of your receipt and upload it to the Receipts folder. That’s it, you’re done. You don’t need to rename the file, much less add categories or fill in boxes.
The reason is that when you need to search for receipts later, Microsoft OneNote will read the text from the image and return the correct results. Let’s face it, often you only scan and save receipts in case you need them one day and not to track your expenses. This is the scenario where OneNote shines.
To download: Microsoft OneNote for Android | iOS (Free)
4. Get My Receipts (Gmail): Turn Gmail receipts into organized spreadsheets
Many receipts are digital, not paper, and land directly in our inboxes. This is typical for online shopping, taxi rides, restaurant deliveries, and other expenses. But you can’t really take a picture of it with an app. This is when you need Get My Receipts to sort email receipts for you.
In Gmail, you can choose to run the app on your entire inbox or on a particular label you’ve created. The label will likely be a better option for sorting by major expenses, such as those you can claim on taxes or those your company will reimburse you for.
Once you have selected the emails, click on the Get My Receipts button to run it. It takes about five minutes and then emails you the final copy of a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet is beautifully organized, with columns for date, merchant, order number, payment, tax, from, to, subject, email text, and a PDF copy of the saved set for posterity.
The free version of Get My Receipts limits you to 50 emails per month, so we suggest sorting them by tags that interest you. But you can pay to unlock unlimited emails and receipts.
To download: Get My Receipts by CloudHQ for Chrome (Free)
5. Receipt Runner (Windows, macOS, Linux): manage email receipts and bank transactions
Receipt Runner is a much more powerful program than Get My Receipts. It has a basic free version with very limited capacity just to see how it works, but you will need to pay at least the basic account $10 per month for it to be useful. But take a look at the app and you might be convinced it’s worth it.
Once you’ve installed Receipt Runner, you’ll need to connect it to your email to scan your inbox for online shopping receipts. Along with this, you will also need to upload a bank statement from your hard drive or connect it to your bank account, so that it can analyze your bank transaction history to match it with the receipts. Note that all data is stored locally on your computer and nothing is transferred online – an important privacy and security step when it comes to financial matters.
Once everything is set up, Receipt Runner is a dream to use. You can search for receipts in a jiffy, add time periods to see a list of transactions, and find just about every digital payment you’ve made. Each entry shows vendor, date, amount, and includes a PDF of the email receipt. You can also export any of this data as a series of PDF files or by emailing it.
To download: Receipt Runner for Windows | macOS | Linux (paid)
Organize now, save time later
Receipts seem like insignificant little pieces of paper that you can throw away, but a situation arises later where they become vital. With a phone always in your pocket now, there’s no reason not to take a picture of a receipt before you throw it away and save it to one of these apps.
But after registering, it is advisable to periodically review these applications and organize these receipts. Make it part of your regular financial planning exercises when you make sure all your paperwork is in order, so you don’t scramble to find a receipt at the last minute.
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