Gone are the days of spending hours rummaging through boxes of paper receipts to do your taxes: with the best receipt scanner apps, your phone does all the work for you. Receipt scanner apps enable you to scan paper documents from your mobile device and store or share them as needed. Then when tax time comes around, you know exactly where to find a chronological collection of all your receipts.
- QuickBooks Online: Best for Businesses That Need Accounting Software
- Dext Prepare: Best for Accounting Firms
- Zoho Expense: Best for Freelancers
- Shoeboxed: Best Do-It-For-You Scanning Service
- Wave: Best for New Businesses
- Smart Receipts: Best for Multi-Format Reports
- Evernote Scannable: Best Free Receipt Scanner App for Businesses
| Cost | Cloud Storage | Number of Receipts Scanned | Number of Receipts Stored | |
| QuickBooks Online | Plans start at $30/month | ✔️ | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Dext Prepare | Small business plans start at $22/month, and accounting firm plans start at $189/month when billed annually | ✔️ | Business plans allow you to upload 300-4000 documents per month | NA |
| Zoho Expense | Plans range from free for businesses with up to three users to customized for companies with more than 500 users | ✔️ | 20-per diem allocation, depending on the plan | 5 GB storage-unlimited, depending on the plan |
| Shoeboxed | Plans are currently on sale and start at $18/month for an annual subscription | ✔️ | 300 physical and 600 digital documents per year or up to 3600 physical and 3600 digital documents per year, depending on your plan | Unlimited |
| Wave | Plans start at $8/month | ✔️ | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Smart Receipts | Free or $9.99/year. OCR costs .10/receipt. | ✔️ | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Evernote Scannable | Free | ✔️ | Up to 60 MB/month for the free plan or up to 20 GB/month with Evernote Professional | Unlimited |
Best Receipt Scanner Apps You Must Try in 2023
We’ve covered the best receipt scanner apps to help you stay organized, track your expenses, and simplify your tax preparation. Read on to learn the pros, cons, and costs of the seven best receipt scanner apps of 2023.
QuickBooks Online: Best for Businesses That Need Accounting Software
Benefits
QuickBooks Online is one of the best accounting software programs for small businesses, as it provides income and expense tracking, invoicing, tax deductions, and general reports. QuickBooks Online is a solid choice for businesses that require accounting software with receipt-capturing capabilities. Its mobile app allows you to take photos of your receipts with your phone and immediately upload or email them to QuickBooks.
Pros
- Automatically matches your receipts to existing expenses or creates new expenses
- Sorts receipts into tax categories
- Ability to create customized tags to analyze your income and expenses
Cons
- Can be challenging to get questions answered via chat
Pricing
QuickBooks Online offers a 30-day free trial and 50% off your first three months.
- Simple Start: $30/month
- Essentials: $55/month
- Plus: $85/month
- Advanced: $200/month
Dext Prepare: Best for Accounting Firms
Benefits
Dext Prepare is automated data extraction software that integrates with accounting software. Dext Prepare provides receipt scanning capabilities and essential features that accounting firms need, including data analysis and the ability to upload bank statements and invoices.
Pros
- Practice Insights (Dext Prepare’s data analysis feature) enables accountants to review in-depth information from specific clients
- Clients can submit their own invoices and receipts to Dext Prepare
- Active subscribers can store info on their Dext Account for at least seven years
Cons
- Once you cancel your subscription you only have ten days to download your data before it is permanently deleted
Pricing (Based on Annual Subscription)
Free trial (between 14-30 days depending on your plan). Businesses with more than 200 clients can contact Dext for customized pricing.
Accounting Firms Plans:
- Streamline 10: $189/month
- Streamline 20: $318.99/month
- Streamline 50: $658.99/month
Small/Medium Business Plans:
- Business Plus: $22/month
- Premium: $43/month
- Enterprise: $64/month
Zoho Expense: Best for Freelancers
Benefits
Zoho Expense is the best app for scanning receipts for freelancers and contractors, as its free plan allows you to scan up to 20 receipts per month, bulk upload receipts, track mileage via GPS, and generate expense reports.
Pros
- Unlimited customer support via email or phone available for all users
- Can read receipts in 14 languages
- Can automatically forward receipts you receive in your email and convert them to expense reports
Cons
- Enterprise and custom plans can get expensive
Pricing
14-day free trial, or free plan includes three users and allows up to 20 receipts and 5 GB receipt storage. Paid plans are billed annually. If you have more than 500 users, you can contact Zoho Expense for a custom quote.
- Standard: $3/user per month (three user minimum)
- Premium: $5/user per month (three user minimum)
- Enterprise: $8/user per month (200 user minimum)
Shoeboxed: Best Do-It-For-You Scanning Service
Benefits
Shoeboxed provides a Magic Envelope feature that assists small businesses that need help with their paper receipts, making it the best do-it-for-you scanning service. Shoeboxed will send you a Magic Envelope, which you can fill with receipts, business cards, or other paper documents. When you send the Magic Envelope to Shoeboxed, it scans your documents, then either shreds the paper originals or returns them to you. Shoeboxed also helps you track your mileage, create expense reports, and integrates with popular accounting software.
Pros
- 30-day money-back guarantee
- Customized plans available
- Automatically imports receipts from Gmail
Cons
- Customer support only available via phone Monday through Friday
Pricing
30-day free trial, then you can either pay monthly, or receive a 20% discount when you purchase an annual subscription. Shoeboxed plans are currently 25% off their regular price:
- Start up: $18/month
- Professional: $36/month
- Business: $54/month
Wave: Best for New Businesses
Benefits
New businesses that need low-cost accounting, invoicing, and receipt scanning services will love Wave, as its accounting and invoicing plans are free, and its receipt scanner app is just $6/month when billed annually. Wave’s mobile receipt capture tool has built-in bookkeeping that helps you keep track of your business expenses. Even if you cancel your subscription, you can still access your scanned receipts as expense transactions.
Pros
- Ability to import up to 10 receipts at a time
- Free accounting software provides unlimited income and expense tracking and bank and credit card connections
- Free customized invoices
Cons
- No phone support available for Wave’s receipt scanner app customers
Pricing
Wave’s mobile receipt service is $8/month when billed monthly, or $72 when billed annually ($6/month).
Smart Receipts: Best for Multi-Format Reports
Benefits
Smart Receipts is the best app to scan receipts for multi-format reports, as it allows you to generate expense reports in PDF, CSV, or ZIP format based on your choice of data type.
Pros
- Ability to generate reports in CSV format for use in spreadsheet software
- Can create reports based on over 20 different categories, including date, price, tax, and payment method
- Automatic exchange rate processing
Cons
- Optical character recognition (OCR) capabilities (processing content from physical documents to digital form) cost $0.10/receipt
Pricing
Smart Receipts offers both a free and a paid version. Its paid version is a subscription plan that is $9.99/year. OCR costs $0.10 per receipt.
Evernote Scannable: Best Free Receipt Scanner App for Businesses
Benefits
Evernote Scannable is the best free receipt app for businesses, as it provides quality scanning capabilities for receipts and other paper documents. It automatically rotates and crops images, and enables you to email, text, or export files.
Pros
- Ability to save info from business cards to your contacts
- Integrates with Evernote’s ScanSnap Edition Scanner for multi-page documents
- Can save documents either directly to your camera roll or your Evernote account
Cons
- No direct way to save to cloud storage
Pricing
Evernote Scannable is free.
Methodology
We chose the seven best receipt scanner apps for small businesses by examining receipt scanner apps with high-quality document scanning capabilities, access to cloud storage, and price points that fit a range of budgets.
FAQs
What is the best receipt scanner app for free?
Smart Receipts, Zoho Expense, and Evernote Scannable are excellent choices for businesses that need a free receipt scanner app. Smart Receipts works well for freelancers or individuals who need an app that can create expense reports in different formats, Zoho Expense is a good choice for businesses that use other Zoho apps, and Evernote Scannable is the best free receipt scanner app overall.
