It’s important to note that several receipt manager apps also double up as expense trackers, but you can also stick to traditional receipt managers. The main idea here is not to manually add data about your expenses, but have your apps automatically source that data by clicking photos of receipts, analyzing your emails, or reading text messages from banks and credit cards. It should feel as less of an effort as possible.
1. Mr. Receipt (Android, iOS): Best Free Receipt Scanner and Tracker
Mr. Receipt, or MrReceipt, is as good as a receipt manager and tracker app can get. It has all the features you would want, and executes them perfectly. And you don’t need the premium version for anything other than exporting all your data as a CSV file.
When you get a new receipt, take a photo of it with the Mr. Receipt app, or upload a PDF from your saved files. The app will instantly recognize the shop name, the total bill, and the date on the receipt. You can add additional details manually, like the shop name, the expenditure category (shopping, food, medical, etc.), and other details like the warranty date.
With that data, Mr. Receipt will also track your expenses across various categories and create a quick-glance dashboard of where and what you spent in monthly breakdowns. It’ll also remind you of warranty end dates if you so desire. It’s really one of the best receipt apps to scan, track, and manage bills.
Download: Mr. Receipt for Android | iOS (Free)
2. Itemize (Android, iOS): Most Powerful Receipt Scanner and Tracker
It’s surprising that Itemize is free considering how powerful it is as a receipt scanner, tracker, and manager. It’s easy to use too, letting you take photos of receipts directly or even upload them from your gallery. We tested if it works with screenshots of email receipts and Itemize passed with flying colors.
Like Mr. Receipt, Itemize can recognize text from the photo and will fill in the basic details you need of the receipt, like date, payment, and merchant. You can then add more details as you need them. The cool part is that Itemize also lets you sort receipts by any of these in the main dashboard itself, so you can quickly see all your receipts from Uber or all expenses on a certain day.
In terms of statistics and reports, Itemize outclasses Mr. Receipt. You can set custom date ranges to get reports of your expenses during that period or drill down in categories to find specific types of bills.
We would have recommended Itemize above Mr. Receipt, but it seems like the app is no longer being actively developed. Features like email imports don’t work anymore, and it doesn’t find a mention on the official website of Itemize. Nonetheless, it’s a great app.
Download: Itemize for Android | iOS (Free)
3. OneNote (Web, Android, iOS): Take Receipt Photos and Search Text From Images
Here at MakeUseOf, we’re big fans of everything you can do with Microsoft OneNote. With the recent improvements in its OCR algorithms to read text from images, it has become our preferred recommendation as a receipt management app for the lazy.
Here’s how it works. First, create a folder called Receipts in Microsoft OneNote. Then take a photo of your receipt, and upload it to the Receipts folder. That’s it, you’re done. You don’t have to rename the file, let alone add categories or fill in boxes.
The reason for that is that when you need to search receipts later, Microsoft OneNote will read the text in the image and return the right results. Let’s face it, often, you are only scanning and saving receipts just in case you need them someday and not to actually track your expenses. That’s the scenario where OneNote shines.
Download: Microsoft OneNote for Android | iOS (Free)
4. Get My Receipts (Gmail): Turn Receipts in Gmail Into Organized Spreadsheets
Many receipts are digital, not paper, and land directly in our inboxes. It’s typical for online shopping, cab rides, restaurant deliveries, and other expenditures. But you can’t really take a photo of it with an app. That’s when you need Get My Receipts to sort out the email receipts for you.
In Gmail, you can either choose to run the app on your full inbox or on a particular label you’ve made. The label is probably going to be a better option for sorting by expenses that matter, like those you can claim on taxes or those that your company will reimburse you for.
Once you’ve selected the emails, click the Get My Receipts button to run it. It takes about five minutes and then emails you the finished copy of a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet is jaw-droppingly organized, with columns for date, merchant, order number, payment, tax, from, to, subject, email text, and a PDF copy of the whole thing saved for posterity.
The free version of Get My Receipts restricts you to 50 emails per month, so we suggest sorting them by labels that matter to you. But you can pay to unlock unlimited emails and receipts.
Download: Get My Receipts by CloudHQ for Chrome (Free)
5. Receipt Runner (Windows, macOS, Linux): Manage Email Receipts and Bank Transactions
Receipt Runner is a much more powerful program than Get My Receipts. It has a basic free version with very limited capability just to see how it works, but you’ll need to pay for at least the $10 per month basic account for it to be of any use. But take a look at the app and you might be convinced it’s well worth it.
Once you install Receipt Runner, you’ll need to connect it to your email for it to analyze your inbox for receipts from online purchases. Along with that, you’ll also need to either upload a bank statement from your hard drive or connect it to your bank account, so that it can analyze your bank transaction history to match it with receipts. Note that all data is stored on your computer locally, and nothing is transferred online — an important privacy and security step when dealing with financial matters.
Once it’s all set up, Receipt Runner is a dream to use. You can search for receipts in a jiffy, add periods to see a transaction list, and pretty much find any digital payment you’ve made. Each entry notes the vendor, date, amount, and includes a PDF of the email receipt. You can also export any of this data as a series of PDFs or by emailing it.
Download: Receipt Runner for Windows | macOS | Linux (Paid)
Organize Now, Save Time Later
Receipts seem unimportant little pieces of paper that you can discard, but then some situation pops up later where they become vital. With a phone always in your pocket now, there’s no reason not to take a photo of a receipt before you throw it away, and save it in one of these apps.
But after saving, it’s advisable to revisit these apps periodically and organize these receipts. Make a part of your regular financial planning exercises when you’re ensuring all your paperwork is in order, so that you aren’t scrambling to find a receipt at the last minute.
