How to Scan Receipts and Turn Them Into Digital Records

Photo vs digital record: what's the difference?

A photo of a receipt is an image. A digital record is that image plus the details on it, such as merchant, date, total, tax and items, stored as data you can search, total and export. The difference shows up the first time you need "every fuel receipt from last quarter" and have to scroll through hundreds of photos.

Receipt apps bridge the gap with OCR (optical character recognition): they read the text in the photo and fill in the details for you. Our page on the OCR receipt scanner lists exactly which fields ScanMyReceipt reads.

How to scan a receipt with your phone

1. Lay the receipt on a flat, dark surface. A desk or a notebook cover works; a dark background makes the edges easy to find.
2. Smooth out folds and creases with your hand.
3. Hold the phone directly above the receipt, not at an angle, so the text isn't skewed.
4. Fit the whole receipt in the frame, with a little margin on every side.
5. Take the photo, then check that the merchant, date and total are sharp before moving on.
6. Confirm or fix the details the app filled in, and add a category, tags or a note.

Lighting and surface tips

• Even light beats bright light. Daylight near a window is ideal. Overhead lights often cause glare on glossy receipts; tilt the receipt slightly or move.
• Watch your shadow. Your phone and hand can cast a shadow across the receipt. Step to the side of the light source.
• Avoid the flash on glossy or thermal paper; it tends to wash out the print.
• Faded receipts: scan them anyway. More light and a steadier hand help, and you can type in anything the app can't read.

Long receipts

Grocery and hardware receipts can be longer than your phone screen. The parts that matter most are at the ends: the merchant and date at the top, the totals and payment at the bottom.

• Step back until the whole receipt fits, then check that the top and bottom are still readable.
• If the middle items come out small, that's usually fine: the total, tax and date are what end up in your records.
• Review the total and date after scanning, since they're the fields your reports depend on.
• If a very long receipt won't fit legibly in one photo, keep the paper copy as well and add a note to the digital record.

Clearing a backlog

If you're starting with a shoebox, don't try to do it all in one sitting. Work in batches, oldest first or by month.

1. Sort the pile roughly by month so related receipts are scanned together.
2. Use the camera's Multi mode in ScanMyReceipt to capture several receipts in a row without leaving the camera.
3. If you've already photographed receipts, select several from your gallery at once.
4. After each batch, check dates and totals, then add categories.

Each receipt counts as one scan on your plan, so a big backlog may take more than the Free plan's 20 scans a month. See the receipt scanner app page for plans and features.

Receipts that are already digital

Not every receipt starts on paper. Online orders, subscriptions, ride shares and food delivery usually send an email or show a receipt in the app. Take a screenshot of the receipt screen and add it from your gallery, so it sits in the same library as your paper receipts with the same categories and search.

Doing this as the email arrives is easier than searching your inbox at tax time, when receipts are buried among newsletters and order updates.

Check the details, then file the paper

Once the digital record is right, decide what to do with the paper. For everyday receipts many people discard the paper once a clear digital copy is saved. For large purchases, warranties and anything you may need to return, keeping the paper for a while is sensible.

If you're keeping receipts for taxes, check the retention periods in our guide on how long to keep business receipts, and see where to store digital receipts safely for backups.