Top Receipt Scanner Apps
- Best In-House Integration: Zoho Expense
- Best Ease of Use: QuickBooks Online
- Best for Physical Receipts: Shoeboxed
- Best for Receipt Tracking: Neat
- Best Integration with Other Accounting Software: Expensify
- Best Free Accounting Software: Wave Accounting
What Is a Receipt Scanner App?
Receipt scanner apps provide a streamlined process for recording and managing receipts. Using OCR technology, they scan receipts, converting the text into digital data to create and categorize expenses. Storing this information digitally means you don’t have to keep the physical receipts around. Plus, you stay organized and ready for filing come tax season.
These apps typically integrate with accounting software or are included features in accounting software to manage receipts seamlessly alongside the rest of your business financials.
How Much Do Receipt Scanner Apps Cost?
The price of receipt scanner apps varies depending on the provider. Below, we lay out how much the providers in our review cost so that you can get a general idea of how all-in-one accounting software with a receipt scanning feature compares to a dedicated receipt scanning app.
| Provider | All-in-One or Receipt-Specific | Starting Cost | Free Trial |
| Zoho Expense | Receipt-specific | $0 per month | ✅ |
| QuickBooks Online | All-in-one | $30 per month | ✅ |
| Neat | Receipt-specific | $200 per year | ✅ |
| Expensify | Receipt-specific | $5 per user per month | ✅ |
| Wave Accounting | All-in-one | $11 per month as an add-on with the free plan or $16 per month included in the paid plan | ✖️ |
| Shoeboxed | Receipt-specific | $29 per month | ✅ |
The above table shows that all-in-one software usually costs more, which makes sense because it has more capabilities. The outlier is Neat, which is a dedicated receipt scanning app that is over six times more expensive than the next closest provider.
Choosing the Best Receipt Scanner App
Selecting the best receipt scanner app for your business requires you to consider several factors. During our review process, we rated providers against the following factors.
Types
We have touched on this briefly in previous sections, but there are two types of receipt scanners: dedicated receipt scanning apps and all-in-one accounting solutions with receipt scanning features.
Receipt scanning apps, such as Shoeboxed and Neat, specialize in uploading receipts, extracting data from them and organizing that data into categories. They don’t help with any other part of bookkeeping or accounting. On the other hand, accounting software can help with mileage tracking, reporting, payroll, invoicing and other parts of accounting in addition to receipt scanning.
The best type of app for you depends on your needs. If you’re a small business, you may be able to get by with just a receipt scanning app to manage expenses. However, as your business grows, you may want to add accounting software to the mix to manage the other aspects of your finances. We recommend an all-in-one accounting software so that you can drop the receipt scanning app and keep all of your finances under one platform. Then, you don’t have to worry about paying for multiple tools and making sure they integrate with each other.
Features
Make sure you know what you are getting with your app. Here are the top receipt scanner app features to look for:
- Mobile receipt scanning: Receipts usually come up when you’re traveling for work or otherwise on the go. To meet users where they are, providers usually offer mobile scanning. You use your phone camera to take a picture of the receipt and then upload it to the provider’s mobile app. This makes it easy to scan receipts as soon as you get them so that you don’t forget about any.
- Email receipt scanning: If employees email you their receipts, you should be able to forward them on to your receipt scanning provider. Your provider can then add them to your account for you.
- Receipt categorization: Most apps categorize receipts automatically as soon as they reach your account. They put the receipts into buckets based on type of expense. You can make changes to the categorization if needed, but it’s usually pretty accurate, which cuts down on manual administrative work.
- Integrations: If you have a specialized receipt scanner, you want to make sure that it integrates with whatever software you use for your other accounting and bookkeeping needs. You can also check to see if it integrates with tax platforms, such as TurboTax and H&R Block, for easy data transfer come tax time.
- Bulk receipt adding: If you wait until the end of the month or quarter to upload receipts, the ability to scan them in bulk as opposed to one by one can save you time.
- Unlimited receipt scanning: Some apps limit the number of receipts you can scan per user and/or per month. If you are a large business with a lot of expenses, look for unlimited uploads.
Customer Support
Customer support can ensure smooth implementation and ongoing usability. Without it, there is the potential for prolonged downtime or unresolved issues, hindering business operations.
Receipt scanner providers offer varying degrees of customer support. Some channels to look out for include:
- Help centers
- Community forums
- Video tutorials
- Phone
- Live chat/chatbot
The phone, email and chat support channels usually have limited availability during business hours. The self-help resources are available 24/7. Typically, all users have access to the online resources, as you can find them by visiting the provider’s website. However, the remaining channels where you talk to a member of the support team are sometimes locked behind higher-tier plans.
Customer Reviews
Customer reviews provide valuable insights into the real-world experiences of receipt scanner users. We factored customer reviews in our ratings of the providers. However, you may want to look at them yourself to see what was said about the providers’ strengths and weaknesses.
Ease of Use
At the end of the day, you want to be able to use your receipt scanner app. Most of the providers on our list offer free trials and/or free plans. We recommend taking advantage of this to test the platforms yourself. That way, you know how easy or difficult they are to navigate.
The Bottom Line
As you continue your search for a receipt scanner, we recommend starting by deciding between a dedicated app or a comprehensive software. Zoho Expense, Neat, Expensify and Shoeboxed fall into the former bucket, while QuickBooks Online and Wave are the latter.
After you make that decision, you can narrow down your options further by considering features, pricing, user experience and customer support. Signing up for a free plan or free trial is a useful way to test the features and assess the user-friendliness.
Frequently Asked Questions About Receipt Scanner Apps
The best way to scan receipts depends on your preferences. However, most receipt scanner apps have three options:
- Take a photo with your phone, and upload it to the mobile app.
- Scan it to your computer, and input into the desktop version.
- Send it to the provider in an email for them to add to your account for you.
Not all accounting software has receipt scanning features, but many of them do. If they’re not in the base plans, you can usually pay extra for an add-on.
The main benefit of receipt scanning software is that it organizes and stores your expenses. Having these receipts is important for keeping your books in order.
Methodology
We at the MarketWatch Guides team spent over 100 hours researching and testing 15 accounting software providers. We looked at all-in-one tools, such as QuickBooks, as well as specific tools for mileage tracking and expense management.
We conducted a survey in 2024 of 200 professionals who were currently using accounting software or had used accounting software within the past year. We analyzed the results of this survey to determine the following rating criteria:
- Reputation and Reviews (15%)
- Features (63%)
- Pricing (10%)
- User Experience (7%)
- Customer Support (5%)
Visit the full accounting methodology page for more details on our rating system.
If you have feedback or questions about this article, please email the MarketWatch Guides team at editors@marketwatchguides.