Receipt Capture reads the documents your clients receive, from receipts and supplier bills to sales documents like RCTIs and account sales. It codes them and creates the bill, expense or sales invoice in their accounting software, so your team is checking work rather than typing it in.
This page is your map.
It starts with where to begin, then explains what the feature does and how a receipt travels from arriving to sitting in the ledger. Throughout these articles, "receipt" means any document sent to Receipt Capture, whether it's published as a bill, an expense or a sales invoice.
New to Receipt Capture? Read in this order
The support article 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.
💡 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.
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 who it's from, the 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 Publish with XBert rule, which works for bills and expenses but not for sales invoices, so every sales invoice is published by someone on your team. |
It gets better the more you use it | XBert can learn from your corrections and remember how you code a supplier's bills and expenses, but not sales invoices, so the next receipt from that supplier comes in right.
Memories are saved against a supplier and describe how to code what your client buys, but on a sales invoice the other party is a customer paying your client, so XBert codes each sales invoice fresh instead. |
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 (app) | 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.
|
💡 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.
Emailed receipts always arrive as bills, so a sales invoice is added by your team or switched from a bill. |
2. XBert reads it | Who it's from (the supplier, or for a sales invoice the buyer or agent), the 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 Publish with XBert rule publishes it automatically, which works for bills and expenses but never sales invoices. XBert creates the bill, expense or sales invoice in your client's accounting software, with the receipt attached. |
💡 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 bills and expenses as soon as they arrive, but never sales invoices, 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.
👉 Read more here: How To: Publish Receipts Automatically with an XBert Rule
⚠️ Publish with XBert doesn't work for sales invoices
Publish with XBert rules can only be set up on the Bill Agent and Bank Transaction Agent, so they publish bills and expenses, never sales invoices.
The Sales Invoice Agent doesn't offer the Publish with XBert action, so every sales invoice has to be published by someone on your team clicking Publish. Other rules on the Sales Invoice Agent still work.
⚠️ 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.
💡 Ask your AI assistant about your receipts
If you've connected Claude, ChatGPT or Copilot to XBert, you can ask it about receipts that haven't been published yet, for example "Which receipts are waiting to be published across my clients, and do any need fixing first?" or "What receipts came in for Bayside Cafe this week?"
👉 Read how to connect to the XBert MCP here: How to: Set up the XBert MCP
Bill, expense or sales invoice?
Every receipt is published as one of three types. Bills and expenses are costs your client pays, while a sales invoice is income your client receives, on a document someone else wrote, such as an RCTI or an account sale.
| Bill | Expense | Sales invoice |
Use it when | It's still owed and will be paid later | It's already been paid from a bank account or card | The buyer or agent wrote it for money your client is receiving |
XBert creates | A bill against the supplier | A transaction paid from that account, such as Spend Money in Xero | A sales invoice against the buyer or agent, as a customer |
Accounting software | Xero, QuickBooks Online, MYOB, FreeAgent | Xero, QuickBooks Online, MYOB, FreeAgent | Xero only |
How it arrives | Added by your team, emailed, or from XBert Capture | Added by your team, or from XBert Capture | Added by your team, or switched from a bill |
Draft or Approved in Xero | Yes, Publish Bills As | No | Yes, Publish Sales Invoices As (separate setting) |
Asks which bank account | No | Yes | No |
Memories | Yes | Yes | No, because memories are saved against suppliers for coding costs |
Publish with XBert rules | Yes | Yes | No |
Agent | Bill Agent | Bank Transaction Agent | Sales Invoice Agent |
Because an expense has already been paid, XBert asks which account the money came out of, but a bill or sales invoice hasn't been paid yet, so it doesn't ask.
👉 Read more here: How To: Publish RCTIs and Account Sales to Xero as Sales Invoices
How it gets better over time
When XBert codes a supplier's bill or expense differently from how you want, correct it and save a memory for that supplier, so future receipts from them are coded your way, but memories don't work for sales invoices, because they're saved against suppliers for coding costs and a sales invoice is income from a customer, so XBert codes each one fresh.
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.
👉 Read more here: How To: Use Memories with Receipt Capture
Setting your clients up on XBert Capture
💡 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.
👉 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 | |
Whether bills and sales invoices go to Xero as Draft or Approved | Settings > Receipt Capture > Settings, the Publish Bills As and Publish Sales Invoices As columns |
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, Bank Transaction Agent or Sales Invoice Agent.
Publish with XBert rules are on the Bill Agent and Bank Transaction Agent only, not the Sales Invoice 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. The banner on the work item says why, for example the lines not matching the total, GST with no ABN, or a sales invoice with a total below zero. |
Memory | A standing note about a supplier, so future bills and expenses from them are coded your way, but not sales invoices, because a sales invoice comes from a customer, not a supplier. |
Publish with XBert rule | A rule that tells XBert which bills and expenses it can publish for you without anyone clicking Publish, but never sales invoices. |
Sales invoice | Income your client receives, published to Xero against the buyer or agent as a customer. Used for RCTIs and account sales. |
RCTI | A recipient-created tax invoice. The buyer writes the invoice for your client, for example a grain buyer. |
Account sale | An agent's statement of what they sold for your client, less commission, freight and levies. |
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. |
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