Receipt capture

The Challenge

Entering every purchase by hand turned bookkeeping into another repetitive task for a small business operator.

The Solution

• Accept a photo of a receipt.
• Extract the purchase details from the image.
• Add the information to a bookkeeping spreadsheet.

A receipt starts as an image, but the bookkeeping workflow needs a row of information. Moving between those formats is where the repeated typing happens. This project focuses on that handoff, taking purchase details from a photo and putting them into the spreadsheet the operator already uses.

The workflow begins with receipt capture, then extracts the purchase information from the image. The output is structured for the bookkeeping spreadsheet instead of leaving the details inside a photo. That gives the operator a consistent place to work with purchases after capture, alongside the rest of the records in the sheet.

The scope is the entry step in an existing bookkeeping process. It is useful to separate that step from the decisions made later about a purchase. For a similar project, the starting materials are representative receipts and the spreadsheet structure they need to fit. Those show which details matter and where the information needs to go.

Results

Purchase details move from receipt photos into a bookkeeping spreadsheet. This replaces repeated manual transcription with a structured capture step. The spreadsheet remains part of the operator’s existing bookkeeping workflow.

Project details

Automation

Past work

Automation

For a similar capture tool, review the kinds of receipts the business actually receives. A clear printed receipt and a faint or cropped photo present different extraction challenges. Decide how uncertain information should be checked before it becomes part of the books, and which spreadsheet columns are required. Those choices help define a useful capture process around the records the operator needs.