Short answer
An employee photographs a receipt with their phone or forwards it by e-mail; AI reads the merchant, amount, VAT and date, suggests an expense category and links it to a project or employee. After approval the data goes into accounting automatically, and nobody has to collect paper receipts in envelopes any more.
The typical problem
Employees collect receipts until the end of the month, some get lost, the accountant retypes them, and then someone has to work out which project each expense belongs to. It’s slow and error-prone.
The automated process
- Submission — a photo from the phone, an e-mail or an upload to a portal.
- Reading — OCR and AI extract the merchant, amount, VAT rate and date.
- Category — the system suggests the expense type (fuel, business trip, office supplies) based on previous cases.
- Approval — the manager approves with one click.
- Accounting — the data and the image go into the accounting system.
Important
- Keep the receipt image as a supporting document in line with accounting requirements.
- Set rules, such as limits and a mandatory comment for large amounts.
- If you’re already automating invoices, it pays to handle receipts in the same system — see how to automate invoice processing.