Receipt Capture reads your clients' receipts, bills and invoices, codes them, and creates the transaction in their accounting software, so your team is checking work rather than typing it in.
This page is your map.
It explains what the feature does and how a receipt travels from arriving to sitting in the ledger, then points you at the articles that walk you through each part.
Why we built Receipt Capture
Getting source documents from clients is the slowest part of bookkeeping, and the part clients find hardest. Receipts sit in gloveboxes and inboxes, arrive late and out of order, and then someone has to key each one into the ledger by hand.
Receipt Capture and the XBert Capture app are two halves of one job: XBert Capture puts a simple app in your client's hands so receipts come to you, and Receipt Capture reads, codes and publishes them. What would have been a keying job becomes a review.
Three things shape how it works:
Principle | What it means for you |
It lands on the board you already work from | Every receipt becomes a work item on your work list, alongside everything else your team does, with a full history of what happened to it. No extra login, no separate queue. |
XBert suggests, your team decides | XI reads the supplier, dates, totals, tax and lines, and predicts the coding based on how that client's ledger has been coded before. Your team checks and corrects. Nothing reaches the ledger until someone clicks Publish, unless you've set up a rule telling XBert which receipts it can publish for you. |
It gets better the more you use it | When you correct a supplier's coding, XBert can learn from your edit and remember it, so the next receipt from them comes in right. |
Two things with similar names
Name | What it is |
Receipt Capture | Your workspace, inside XBert. Receipts land here, and this is where your team checks, corrects and publishes them. |
XBert Capture | A separate app for your clients, on the web and on their phone. They photograph a receipt and send it to you. They send, you process.
|
š” They're switched on separately
Turning on Receipt Capture for a client doesn't give them the XBert Capture app, and the other way round. Two settings, two screens. Both screens have Bulk Actions, so you can switch on many clients at once.
How a receipt gets to the ledger
Every receipt takes the same four steps, whichever way it arrived.
1. It arrives | You add it, someone emails it to the client's receipt address, or your client sends it from XBert Capture. |
2. XBert reads it | Supplier, date, reference, totals, tax and lines. Then it predicts the accounts, tax rates and tracking. |
3. You check it | A Receipt Capture work item appears on your work list, like any other job. You correct anything XBert got wrong. |
4. It's published | Someone on your team clicks Publish, or a rule you've set up publishes it. XBert creates the bill or expense in your client's accounting software, with the receipt attached. |
š” You decide what publishes on its own
By default, a receipt only becomes a transaction when someone on your team clicks Publish.
If you'd rather not check every receipt, set up a Publish with XBert rule, for example "Coles receipts under $500 for these clients". XBert publishes matching receipts as soon as they arrive, and runs the same checks as the Publish button. If it finds a possible duplicate, would need to create a new contact, or can't check the supplier's tax registration, it stops and leaves the receipt for your team.
Everything it does is recorded on the work item.
š Read more here: How To: Publish Receipts Automatically with an XBert Rule
ā ļø Publishing isn't reconciling
XBert creates the transaction and attaches the receipt. It doesn't match it against the bank feed. You still reconcile in your accounting software, exactly as you do now.
Bill or expense?
Every receipt is one or the other, and the only question is whether it's been paid.
Type | Use it when | XBert creates |
Bill | The invoice is still owed and will be paid later. | A bill. |
Expense | It's already been paid from a bank account or card. | A transaction paid from that account, such as Spend Money in Xero. |
Because an expense has already been paid, XBert asks which account the money came out of. A bill hasn't, so it doesn't ask.
How it gets better over time
When XBert codes a supplier differently from how you want, correct it and save a memory for that supplier. Future receipts from them are then coded your way, so your team corrects less as time goes on.
Once receipts from a supplier are coming through right every time, that's a good point to set up a Publish with XBert rule for them.
š Read more here: How To: Use Memories with Receipt Capture
New to Receipt Capture? Read in this order
The collections are numbered because they follow the order you'll actually do things. Work through them in turn and you'll have Receipt Capture running properly, rather than half set up.
š” In a hurry?
Read:
That's enough to get your first receipt in and see what happens to it.
Do this first. Receipts can't arrive for a client who isn't switched on, and work items keep the settings they were created with, so it pays to decide how they're made before the first one lands.
Read this before you tell your clients how to send things in, so you can point each of them to the route that suits them.
This is the collection your team will live in. Checking what XBert read, correcting it, and pushing it through to the ledger.
Come here once receipts are flowing and you'd like to be correcting fewer of them, or checking fewer by hand.
Setting your clients up on XBert Capture
š” Want your clients sending receipts from their phone?
That's the XBert Capture app, set up separately with its own collection. Set up payment methods first, because your client has to pick one before they can send a receipt.
š Read more here: Overview: XBert Capture
Where things live
What you're after | Where it is |
Your captured receipts | Receipt Capture in the left-hand menu |
A receipt's work item | Your work list, or click Open on the receipt |
Turning a client on, receipt email addresses, payment methods, blocked senders | |
Changing many clients at once | Settings > Receipt Capture > Settings, then the Actions icon > Bulk Actions  |
How Receipt Capture work items are created, and Publish with XBert rules | Automation > XBert Automation, then the Bill Agent or Bank Transaction Agent |
Your clients' app access and invitations | |
Everything XI has learned | Settings > AI & Intelligence > AI Memory |
The words you'll see
Term | What it means |
Receipt Capture work item | The job XBert creates from a receipt, sitting on your work list with everything else. It's where you check and publish. |
Receipt email address | Each client's own address for forwarding receipts in. It appears once that client is switched on. |
Payment method | A named account your client picks when they send a receipt from the app. |
Status | Where the work item has got to. |
Stage | Whether XBert has read the receipt yet. |
Held for review | XBert tried to publish and stopped, usually because the figures didn't add up. Check the work item. |
Memory | A standing note about a supplier, so future receipts from them are coded your way. |
Publish with XBert rule | A rule that tells XBert which receipts it can publish for you, without anyone clicking Publish. |
Bulk Actions | Changes a Receipt Capture or XBert Capture setting for many clients in one go. |
XI | XBert Intelligence, the part of XBert that reads receipts and predicts the coding. |
What's next
Need help?
If you have any questions, our support team is here to help!
Reach out via the chat widget on the bottom left of your XBert screen (Help), or email us at support@xbert.io