AI systems, in practice · Receipt inbox

A receipt inboxthat drafts bills in Xero

Forward a receipt to one address, or snap a photo on your phone. The system reads the vendor, date, total and tax, matches it to the card payment, and drafts the bill in Xero with the image attached. The bookkeeper approves what gets posted.

How receipts were handled before

Receipts arrive as crumpled paper, forwarded emails and screenshots. Someone saves them up, types each one into the books, and chases the people who forgot. Many teams pay for a scanning app instead, with a fee for every person who might ever submit a receipt.

Corner Print Shop

14 Oct 2026

Subtotal: 84.00
GST 5%: 4.20
Total: 88.20

Bill

Draft · waiting for the bookkeeper

Supplier: Corner Print Shop
Date: 14 Oct 2026
Total: 88.20
Tax (GST): 4.20
Attached: receipt.jpg

Photo from a phoneSnap it at the till. It joins the same inbox and is read the same way.
Only mentions a priceA quote or a promotion that names an amount is not a purchase. It is left alone.
Unreadable scanToo blurry to trust. It goes to a person to read, and nothing is guessed.

A receipt unfolds, gets read, and becomes a draft bill with the image attached. The same inbox takes a phone photo, ignores an email that only mentions a price, and sends an unreadable scan to a person.

What happens to a receipt

Forward it or photograph it.

Forward the email to the inbox address, or photograph the paper on your phone. Both land in the same place.

It reads the receipt.

Vendor, date, total and tax come off the page, and the image stays attached as the record.

It finds the card payment.

The receipt is matched to the charge it belongs to, so the books show what each payment was for.

It skips anything that isn't a receipt.

An email that only mentions a price, like a quote or a promotion, is left alone. A scan too blurry to read goes to a person.

No per-person fees

The inbox lives inside the same system as the rest of the books, so there is no separate subscription and no fee per person. Anyone on the team can forward a receipt, and the bookkeeper starts the month with the entries already drafted.