The 5 Best Apps For Business Receipts in 2024

Whether you are managing finances for your small business or filing taxes, receipts from your purchases will likely get lost in a sea of documents and miscellaneous papers. Additionally, physical documents can get damaged or destroyed. 

Converting your printed receipts and documents into digital files can solve these problems. 

While document scanners exist, a receipt management app is a great way to keep your receipts stored and organized digitally. The best receipt management software and receipt scanner apps include online tools that allow you to consolidate and access your receipts from anywhere. 

This article covers the most popular receipt management apps and how they help businesses become more efficient. 

What is receipt management? 

Receipt management is a fundamental aspect of general accounting. The term “receipt management” refers to using receipt scanner apps to scan receipts, organize receipts, and keep an accurate and complete record of your financials. 

Most receipt business expense management apps work the same way. You download them onto your cell phone and use them to scan receipts. OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology digitalizes the receipt data and stores digital versions in a filing system.

By scanning paper receipts with OCR and creating a digital version, you can retrieve your receipts anytime by searching with keywords and filters. 

Why is receipt management important?

Small and medium-sized businesses typically deal with hundreds of expense receipts on a daily basis. Managing receipts for a business can be daunting, but the proper organization can help you create expense reports with less effort.

This is where a receipt tracking system can be beneficial in many ways. Not only will you be able to manage receipts with greater ease, but you will also be able to keep track of your spending documents.

Here are 3 further ways that receipt management apps benefit small business owners.

1. Categorizing receipts

Organizing receipts is easier with a digital filing system. Receipt scanner apps will scan receipts, creating digital versions you can store safely on the cloud. You can keep your expense receipts in a folder in order by date, or you can keep them in a folder by expense category.

2. Locating tax deductions

Once your digital receipts are organized by category, you will find it easier to manage business expenses, file taxes, and find areas where you may be overspending. Receipt tracking apps are valuable for accountants, allowing them to find tax deductions quickly and easily. Be sure not to file your tax returns twice!

3. Preparing for a tax audit

Tax audits can be stressful and time-consuming, but proper receipt management can help make them quicker and smoother. Keeping track of your receipts will also help ensure that your business is always audit-ready.

What is the importance of a receipt?

A receipt is an official document proving a business transaction or purchase has occurred. Receipts are provided for business transactions, such as sales transactions, etc. Receipts are also necessary for tax purposes as proof of expenses incurred.

Five best receipt management apps for businesses

There are many receipt scanner and management apps available to choose from. However, your choice will depend on your business needs.

Here’s how the best receipt scanning and management apps stack up. 

1. Shoeboxed: Best receipt scanner app and receipt scanning service for small business owners 

Platforms: iOS, Android

Ideal users: Small business owners, bookkeepers and accountants 

Key benefit: Saves you time in tallying receipts and being super ready for tax season. 

Price: Starting at $4.99/month

With Shoeboxed, you can mail your receipts to a Shoeboxed facility to have them scanned and organized. If you prefer not to send physical receipts to be stored securely at Shoeboxed’s facility, you can upload your receipts via mobile app or email—which are then automatically categorized into various tax categories. 

The Magic Envelope Service

The receipt scanning app helps you to target deductible expenses, and the expense report export tool provides you with sharable and downloadable PDF and CSV files of your reports. All plans come with unlimited storage options. And all OCR scans are verified by human data verification experts.

Shoeboxed’s most notable receipt scanner feature is that you can outsource receipt scanning entirely by stuffing receipts into a pre-paid envelope for processing at their receipt scanning center. Plans start from $18 per month. 

Shoeboxed is the only receipt scanner app that will handle both your paper receipts and your digital receipts—saving customers up to 9.2 hours per week from manual data entry!

How does Shoeboxed compare to other receipt scanner apps?

2. Expensify: Best expense tracking app for travelers

Platforms: iOS, Android, web browsers

Ideal users: Travelers 

Key benefit: Great for people who love to travel as it works seamlessly across devices. 

Price: From $5/month

Expensify’s receipt dashboard

Expensify is a receipt scanning and expense reporting app that helps you track your expenses on the go. The mobile app is available for both iOS and Android.

This receipt management tool seamlessly integrates with popular accounting tools making expense reporting a breeze. The Expensify app can be used online or offline. You can use your smartphone camera to take a photo of the receipt, and the app will automatically calculate the charges.

Next, you can attach the receipt to an expense report. Although the receipt scanner is usually accurate, there may be times when it does not capture all the details on your receipt. It’s important to check your expenses carefully and verify all the charges entered into your account.

See also: Budget Battles: Expensify vs. Concur

Shoeboxed vs. Expensify Email Receipts: Which One is Better?

3. Neat: Best receipt scanner app for bookkeeping

Platforms: iOS, Android

Ideal users: Bookkeepers

Key benefit: The mobile app lets you connect your bank accounts, credit cards, and loan payments for real-time tracking. 

Price: From $25/month

Neat’s online dashboard

If your aim is to keep your books in better order, Neat is a solid choice. The receipt scanning app scans and uploads receipts.

Neat also connects your bank accounts, company credit card, and loan payments to Neat Receipts for expense tracking. It will also itemize your expenses on each receipt and match receipts to your invoices and bank statements for clearer financial reconciliation and to create expense reports. You can upload, sort, and organize as many non-financial documents as possible.

Furthermore, Neat’s expense management data connects with accounting tools (like QuickBooks) and tax tools (H&R Block’s and TurboTax). With Neat, there’s no need to manually export your expense reports, non-financial documents, or itemized receipts if you’re logging them on Neat.

4. WellyBox: Best web-centric receipt tracking platform

Platforms: Web, What’s App

Ideal users: Freelancers, small businesses, mid-size businesses

Key benefit: Connect with WhatsApp to easily scan your receipts into your account

Price: From $9 per month

WellyBox’s homepage

WellyBox is a receipt and expense web app where you can track and manage your invoices and create reports. You can link it to your email address so any recently acquired receipts will be visible on the WellyBox dashboard. Additionally, you can use WhatsApp integration to scan a receipt and upload it to your WellyBox account.

Once your receipts are uploaded, you can establish classification rules to gain a better understanding of your financial standing.

Prices for WellyBox’s plans are as follows:

• Basic plan: $9 per month

• Business plan: $49 per month

• Accountant plan: $99 per month

5. Dext Prepare: Best for businesses needing robust receipt tracking capability

Platforms: iOS, Android, Web

Ideal users: Freelancers, business owners, bookkeepers, and accountants

Key benefit: Businesses needing robust capabilities. Bookkeeping and accounting firms.

Price: Business Plus plan starts at $22 per month; accounting or bookkeeping firm plans start at $189.99 a month.

Dext Prepare’s online dashboard

Dext Prepare connects to the various systems you use for your business, including accounting programs like Quickbooks, Xero, bill.com, Right Network, Gusto, ApprovalMax, and other integrations.

They provide plans tailored for bookkeepers and accountants and are more geared to enterprise-sized businesses. Their free trial runs for 14-days, which allows users to try out premium features before making a final choice.

For those already using a variety of other Dext products, such as Dext Commerce and Dext Precision, Dext Prepare is an easy choice for receipt tracking and management.

Frequently asked questions

What features should I look for in the best receipt management apps?

The best receipt management apps and receipt scanner apps should have the following features: 

1. Receipt tracking & scanning receipts

2. Mileage logging

3. Data verification

4. Expense reports export

5. Syncable across different devices

What are the best apps to keep track of business receipts? 

Each of the following apps will provide you with different extra features, but they all cover the basic functionality of a receipt tracking app, such as receipt scanning and tracking, expense reports, and scanned receipts storage: 

1. Shoeboxed 

2. Expensify

3. Neat

4. WellyBox

5. Dext Prepare

Bonus: How do contractors keep track of receipts? 

Step 1. Establish a manageable organizing system.

Step 2. Use receipt software such as Shoeboxed, Neat, or Expensify to keep track of the receipts. 

Step 3. Have a data backup system in case of data loss on your app. Several good methods to try out are (1) take photos of your receipts, (2) keep an accounting journal, and (3) store your receipts in a secure location.

Bonus: What is the best way to keep track of receipts?

The best way to keep track and not lose your receipts is to use a receipt management app. Business owners usually deal with hundreds of receipts daily, which is time-consuming. Especially if they need to tally all the receipts manually. Hence, a receipt tracking app saves businesses time and money in filling documents and preparing for tax filing and tax audits. 

Final thoughts

Transforming your paper receipts into digital files and expense reports saves you from spending hours hunting through papers for information or organizing paper receipts into a logical sequence.

Cloud services, mobile apps, and receipt scanning apps can automatically perform these tasks, increasing the accuracy of your finances and helping you keep track of your expenses.

Tomoko Matsuoka is managing editor for Shoeboxed, MailMate, and other online resource libraries. She covers small business tips, organization hacks, and productivity tools and software.

About Shoeboxed!

Shoeboxed is a receipt scanning service with receipt management software that supports multiple methods for receipt capture: send, scan, upload, forward, and more!

You can stuff your receipts into one of our Magic Envelopes (prepaid postage within the US). Use our receipt tracker + receipt scanner app (iPhone, iPad and Android) to snap a picture while on the go. Auto-import receipts from Gmail. Or forward a receipt to your designated Shoeboxed email address.

Turn your receipts into data and deductibles with our expense reports that include IRS-accepted receipt images.

Join over 1 million businesses scanning & organizing receipts, creating expense reports and more—with Shoeboxed.

Try Shoeboxed today!