Know what you spend. Receipt scanner

yellow218

Hi all

This may be taking money saving a bit far but hubby and I like to know what we spend and where we spend it.

I’m trying to find an app that can help with this. My ideal scenario:
1) the app is free (or very cheap)
2) you can scan a receipt with an I phone and the app automatically recognises the date, the amount and the store.
3) for each receipt you can allocate a spend category
4) you can personalise the categories
5) you can export as an csv doc.

So far all the apps I’ve found are for small businesses rather than personal finance, and you can’t personalise the categories.

Does anyone use an app that does what I’m looking for please? If not I’m tempted to build an app, would other people use it?

[Deleted User]

Are you actually looking for an app or are you looking for testers of an app you want to build?

Why do you need this?

Is there a need to scan receipts?
Since only originals are accepted for returns etc.

getmore4less

If you budget properly you plan the spending on each category in advance.

Being able to take Any receipts and identify the products would be quit difficult.

MSMoney does split transactions that allows manual entry of a single bill to categories.

Have a look at the receipt scanners that give cashback vouchers they may get close.

Potato_Jacket

As an aside, I've been in two shops this month where "we don't do paper receipts. We can send you one by email if you really want one".


Both were clothes shops that might be described as youthful and trendy. Not the type I frequent outside of this birthday (attempted) purchase so I wonder if it's more common than I realise.

yellow218

Sorry if I wasn’t clear. I’m hoping an app already exists, but I’m struggling to find one. If one doesn’t exist I’m considering working with a techy friend to develop one.

I’m not interesting in keeping the receipts for returns (not required), but I’d like a way to capture the spend (and categorise it) without having manually enter every transaction into a spreadsheet.

This is to help hubby and I monitor our spending.

yellow218

getmore4less wrote: »

If you budget properly you plan the spending on each category in advance.

Very true. I believe Martin Lewis advises that to budget correctly you first need to know what you spend. I’d also suggest that unless you monitor you’d spend you don’t know if you’re within budget or not.

My budget is pretty accurate and we monitored spend using bank statement exports. Only we have a number of different accounts now and it’s getting quite clumbersome to monitor. I was hoping a receipt scanner app would help improve the process.

fiendishlyclever

Have a look at one of the apps that support open banking as they will categorise your expenses for you (as do the challenger heels)

I've not used any personally but video adverts for Yolt keep popping up in my games...

yellow218

fiendishlyclever wrote: »

Have a look at one of the apps that support open banking as they will categorise your expenses for you (as do the challenger heels)

I've not used any personally but video adverts for Yolt keep popping up in my games...

Good suggestion. I considered this. It only goes so far. Hubby and I both get discounts from our work at certain places by using pre-paid cards. We want to be able to track spend on those cards too, but they don’t sync with open banking. We also use credit cards for points (always paid in full) and I don’t think they work with open banking either?

Zero_Sum

If you have a PC, you can download MS Money, and input manually

yellow218

Zero_Sum wrote: »

If you have a PC, you can download MS Money, and input manually

Yes. But I’m looking to avoid manual entry.

Maybe I’m asking too much.

getmore4less

yellow218 wrote: »

Very true. I believe Martin Lewis advises that to budget correctly you first need to know what you spend. I’d also suggest that unless you monitor you’d spend you don’t know if you’re within budget or not.

My budget is pretty accurate and we monitored spend using bank statement exports. Only we have a number of different accounts now and it’s getting quite clumbersome to monitor. I was hoping a receipt scanner app would help improve the process.

I used to track in quite low detail in MSMoney and it only took an hour or two a month to take multi category shopping receipts and remember cash transactions into split the transaction along with all the other tracking and replanning that I was doing.

Things like meat was a seperate category on a supermarket spend from groceries, alcohol, household, entertainment cashback.

Tracking is a lot easier when you are working to plan because as you buy you have the plan in mind not later when you are seeing what you spent.