Receipt scanner apps are a convenient way of keeping tabs on your expenses and saving important documents as soft copies. These applications help scan receipts, invoices, and other important documents easily through your smartphone besides helping you store them safely. Not only do they save you time and physical space but also provide easy organization and accessibility of your documents.
Whether you're a small business owner, freelancer, or just want to easily track your personal expenses, then a receipt scanner app can be an invaluable tool. Forbes Advisor describes the best receipt scanner apps of 2023 below.
What are receipt-scanning apps?
A receipt scanner app is a kind of mobile application wherein your employees can click pictures of receipts right from their smartphones. In order to evade plenty of paperwork, organizations have begun using a receipt scanner for business expenses that are provided with OCR(optical character recognition) software.
What it does is read the content text from any edit PDF Scan document or image and change the same into machine-readable information.
Does your business need a Mobile scanning app?
The clear way to look at whether your business needs a receipt scanner app is by seeing how often and how complex is the reimbursement process in your organization. Look at previous data on business expenses and employee involvement in it. Ask your employees whether they feel that it would help them.
Advantages of using a receipt scanning app
Reimbursing the traditional way is painful for both, the employees as well as your finance team. Also, filled with errors in between. If somewhere down the line an employee loses a receipt, it will be impossible to claim any reimbursement related to that expense.
This is where opting for a receipt scanner app can prove beneficial for you. It allows your employees to upload their receipts on the spot in digital format. The optical character recognition software present reduces human errors that may occur while manually entering data from receipts.
Your finance team, in particular, will find this business receipt app immensely helpful; with digital receipts, they will no longer have to run around reminding the employees to file their claims.
How does receipt scanning make expense management easier?
The way expenses were managed within an organization was regarded as a normal procedure simply because there was no better alternative for the longest time. Employees purchase some item on behalf of the business, collect the receipt, hold onto it till the end of the month, file their expense report along with the receipt, and wait to receive the reimbursement. That's how it is done.
As it so happened, printing the text from a computer is actually easy. However, turning physical images or documents with text into readable texts that computers can understand is not an easy task. Now thanks to the evolution of OCR technology over time, we have receipt scanner apps for business available these days. Optical character recognition software has evolved to be able to identify patterns pixel-by-pixel and read out even different font variations of handwritten or typed texts.
Benefits of Receipt Scanner Apps
1. Ease-of-use
Receipt scanner apps help easily scan and manage paper receipts from any location through a camera phone without carrying physical copies or entering data manually.
2. Precise results
OCR technology features availed by the receipt scanning app can extract precise values from scanned receipts, thus providing accurate information with no chances for errors or omissions.
3. Time-efficient
Using receipt scanner apps saves more time while reporting expenses than traditional means using paper receipts since it provides much easier access to all necessary information faster with just one click.
4. Security
Many such scanning applications avail options like secure storage and encryption for keeping financial data safe from unauthorized accesses.
5. Integration
The applications of receipt scanners can be integrated with other financial management tools, including accounting software to facilitate a seamless approach to tracking and reporting of expenses.
Tips To Choose the Best Document Scanner App
Some of the important functions that are considered to be present in the receipt scanner app are:
1. OCR accuracy
Ensure that OCR technology behind a chosen receipt scanning app is powerful enough to pull data out of scanned receipts with high accuracy, hence saving an individual from possible mistakes or missed points.
2. Receipt categorization
Make sure whether an application under consideration allows classifying and sorting all the receipts by type of expense, tax category, or some other way.
3. Integration with other tools
Check if an app integrates with any accounting software or another financial management tool to ease up work on tracking expenses and providing reports.
4. Ease of use
Select an app having a user-friendly interface that is easily understood and navigated through ensuring the operation of the same is fun.
5. Security
Opt for receipt scanner apps providing secure storage options complemented with encryptions in place thereby guarding financial details involved from unauthorized access.
6. Customer support
Consider the level of customer assistance offered by the app provider regarding availability of online resources including knowledge base and live support.
Types of Receipt Scanner Apps
Different types of receipt scanner apps come with different features and capabilities. Some popular types include:
1. Dedicated receipt scanning apps
Designed to scan receipts and manage them, such can feature OCR technology, the ability to categorize scanned receipts in addition to integrating with other tools for managing finances.
2. Expense tracking apps
Greatly focused on expense tracking and management, these can offer users receipt scanning besides being able to track, budget as well and pay bills in addition to supporting integration with accounting software.
3. Receipt scanner apps designed for businesses
Apps of this kind are tailored to the needs of some specific business models like, for example, freelance professionals, and small or corporate organization businesses, and can have options such as customizable expense policies, approval workflows, and payroll system integration.
4. Advanced features in receipt scanner apps
Some of the receipt scanner apps do more than just scan the receipt and store records. They have additional functionalities for document storage, collaboration tools, or even project management.
5. Integrations
Integrations are necessary for a receipt scanner app since they provide users with a chance to connect the application perfectly well with other tools and systems that can help them manage their finances, such as accounting software, bank accounts, and payroll systems. Such integrations may be used in order to facilitate the transfer of information between different systems, thereby saving time on managing financial data through manual inputting of data from one system into another.
How To Use a Receipt Scanner App
Typically, to use a receipt scanner app, you have to do:
Download and install the application from either the App Store or Google Play Store or access it via your web browser.
Sign up and create your profile along with any integrations required with other financial management tools.
Capture receipts using your phone's camera functionality or electronically upload receipts that arrive via email or some other electronic format.
Manage these captured receipts by reviewing them and using categorization and tagging features provided by the app in question.
Export or integrate them into other systems such as accounting software or expense tracking tools as needed.
Check and update your receipts on an as-required basis using the features of the app to track expenses, create reports, and manage financial data.
FAQ
1. What is the purpose of scanning receipts?
After all, they're your only way to prove you've spent the money you've claimed as tax deductions. Since paper receipts are notorious for fading over time, digitizing them is the best way to organize them.
2. How do small businesses keep track of receipts?
Get a business credit card.
Make helpful notes.
Keep your receipts for 7 years.
Choose paper or digital.
Categorize your receipts.
3. How do receipt scanning apps make money?
Receipt scanning apps make money in a couple of different ways- and no, it's not from selling your info. They earn their keep by partnering with brands on grocery store shelves and elsewhere. A lot of these apps employ affiliate marketing- aka the app gets paid a commission when a user buys an item they advertised within the app.
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