
Scanning/Adding Receipts: Why?
Hey YNAB Forum-ers (okay, that needs work...)!
A pretty common request that comes through the feedback & feature request channels is the ability to be able to scan/attach a picture of a receipt to a particular transaction.
So we've been curious for more detail on what that would allow you to do or make easier for you. Is it strictly an organizing need? Tax reporting? Small-business use? Something else entirely?
Hearing more detail about how people want to use it would help contextualize this one—thanks!
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I use scanning for a number of reasons and was disappointed to find I am unable to do this with YNAB.
Often receipts fade overtime so when I make a transaction for an item with a warranty I will scan/photo so that I have a legible copy.
For items required for tax returns
also if I buy and item that’s not consumable I often keep a copy of receipt so that if it falls apart in a couple of wears or uses I have the re riot for exchange.
I hope you consider this option on YNAB as most other transaction programs offer this
thx 🙏
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Because taking a picture is quick and a very common action that requires less time/thought. Remembering to add all transactions is hard enough for some of us and when we do remember, we don't always have the time. Entering info into your app may seem straightforward enough at a programming desk but out on the road and with multiple accounts it takes a little more time and thoughts. I tried it this month and ended up ditching the idea, instead, I decided to ask for receipts and stuff them in my work bag. The trouble is the task then grows and I still need to remember to do it. The function that I personally would love to see is a receipt dump by a photo.
The workflow that would best suit me would be this. Take a picture of a receipt (or screenshot it to allow for e-receipts) from within YNAB - the file is scanned for data and populated into a temporary transaction (and unallocated to any account) - when less busy, I can go through and amend (if required) and approve the transaction and allocate them to the correct accounts - all processed and approved receipts, get stored in a location on the app to keep them out of my personal photos. If this is not possible, then the ability to simply take and store photos in the YNAB app (and not duplicating them to personal photos would help).
I could just take pictures of receipts myself but they would get lost in my personal albums and it defeats the time-saving object.
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This would be an AWESOME feature! My wife is a "reluctant" user, and I have a hard time getting her to enter transactions into YNAB. This leads to confusion about current balances, and causes problems. If she could take a picture of her receipt (which she always does anyway for her couponing sites), I could better categorize the transactions. It would also help me in being able to track back and find information when I need it later. I'm not sure what I would need it for, but it might be taxes as you mentioned. Other times it might be just for reference. Please make it happen soon!
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As some of the other users mentioned here, I would like this feature to keep track of receipts where tips and stuff are written down. I just had an incident today where I noticed my YNAB and credit card were out of sync, and it turned out I was overcharged at a restaurant. It would have been great if I had an image of that receipt attached to YNAB to show them!
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My wife and I currently created a Group in WhatsApp Messenger where we each take picture of our rceipts and send them to each other. Since we closely track the budget categories, I often need to split a transaction but without actually know the split-- I can't do it. We use the Group so that when I reconcile transactions, I will look through receipts and find ones denoted with splits (common categories include: Groceries, Household, or Donation) on a single receipt.
To iterate, a "shoeboxed" function would be great where we JUST capture receipts via the camera. The next step would be associating those receipts, through manual or machine learning, to the actual transaction/splits. It would be imperative that I could see the receipts in the Web and the App.
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I am just starting my trial, and I would really like this feature. I am leaning towards YNAB instead of quickbooks, because I do not need all of the bells and whistles of quickbooks. I am a small business owner, and need a way to keep receipts for audits and organization. If everything is all in one place, I'm much more likely to keep up with it.
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Step 1. Go to a big-box store.
Step 2. Purchase a cartful of things that spans 3 categories
Step 3. with 4 kids in tow, lose the receipt, which happens all the time
Step 4. your accounting is completely ruined, as you now have no idea how to split the transactions
Scanning/imaging the receipt is crucial, and is one of the chief steps in the transaction capturing process that I use in Quicken (trialing YNAB atm).If any users DON'T want to have scanning/imaging receipts in the user flow, just allow them turn it off in preferences.
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Forwarding an email receipt and having YNAB auto-enter it would be golden. Then I could just auto-forward receipts from Amazon! Today I often forget to enter an amazon purchase and then have to go back into my amazon account later to figure out how to categorize it.
Expensify does receipt scanning. It's pretty slow but helpful.
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Hi Todd, I purchased a tablet. They told me that it is two year under warranty if I bring the device with its receipt. I am holding on the hard copy at the moment. If I had a chance to take a pic of the receipt and upload on YNAB with its transaction, it would make my life way easier. I believe it is a crucial feature for finance software.
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I would utilize receipt images to make categorizing my husband's transactions easier. The hubby uses the YNAB app to enter his transactions as he does them, but he relies on me to manage where our money is going and keeping everything categorized correctly. He uses the category balances as his guidelines and just makes sure not to overspend any of them. If I could look up all his receipts quickly, it would be easier for me to make any adjustments to his categorization and add any necessary splits.
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It would be nice for categorization at a later time to have a direct relationship between the transaction and a receipt, especially for retailers that we visit frequently, and for different purposes. Some of what we buy is tax deductible, some isn't. Some is for our home, some isn't. Most is not reimbursable, but some is. Would be nice to pull up a transaction and show exactly what was included in the purchase.
This wouldn't be useful for all transactions, like gas. If it's under 10.00, it was a snack, if it was over 10.00, it was likely fuel. We don't need a receipt to determine this.Reply -
Hi, my husband has a small business and we need to keep the recites for tax purposes. It would be easier just to have it all in one place. Recites for business spending and for income. Also when I spend money for work I need to keep track of the recites. Also if you need to return something if I can take a picture of the recite as the transaction happens then I will for sure have it if I need to return and exchange something. Also if you have OCR with the recites which most business expense report apps have now then I wouldn’t have to spend time recoding so much info I just take a picture of the recite and you can pull the date vendor how much etc.
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For me, personally at this time, I doubt that you could implement something that I would find more useful than my current method. My current method: 1. Don't worry too much about categorizing household supplies vs groceries. 2. Trust that restaurant, grocery receipts don't need to be verified after the fact, just toss them & trust the transactions as they come in through import. 3. Use a ScanSnap scanner and/or Scannable app in conjunction with Evernote to keep an manage important tax and waranty receipts & information for possible future retrieval.
What would be really cool is if you can use a really good AI to capture and interpret a receipt in a way that makes entering the transaction easy & storing the image with the transaction. As you already know this is very complex and difficult to do well. My ScanSnap scanner came with a receipt management tool with that sort of AI, and I quickly abandoned it because it just not helpful enough.
As I really think about this problem, I think that a good solution probably starts at the time of the transaction. The credit card companies should capture "receipts" or some sort of receipt proxy that can contains all the relevant information & is universally recognized as a receipt. Then we wouldn't have this exact problem anymore. Hmm. Just thinking way out there.
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I would likely only use it for large purchases and reimbursement categories such as "Professional Expenses" since my hospital reimburses providers at the end of the year for certain expenses. Currently, I just use separate Google drive folders allocated for my job and important receipts, warranties, agreements, etc to.
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