Receipts Assistant: the guide

• New Zealand businesses with a few to a few dozen people spending on company cards
• Trades and service businesses whose people buy fuel, parts and materials on the job
• Owners and office managers who chase receipts at the end of each month

Card purchases sit in Xero with no receipt, people lose the paper, and every GST return starts with a week of chasing who bought what and why.

• Your people snap a receipt on their phone in seconds: no app, no password
• Every card purchase without a receipt is found, and the right person asked, once a day at most
• Choose who approves whose expenses, as Xero users have asked
• Each receipt checked by IRD's rules before it goes in: the shop's GST number on bigger ones, your business named on the biggest
• In Xero next to its card purchase with the photo attached, so reconciling is pressing OK
• Learns how each shop is coded, so most receipts need no change

A link for each person

Each person gets their own receipts link by email. They keep it on their phone's home screen and photograph each receipt. The first time on a phone they type a six-digit code we email them; after that the phone stays signed in. Emailed receipts can be forwarded to your own address instead.

Reads the receipt

The shop, date, total, GST, the shop's GST number and what was bought are read off the photo or PDF. Nothing is guessed: what can't be read is left for a person.

Matches it to the card purchase

Each receipt is matched to its card purchase from your bank feed, by amount, date and card. A tip or surcharge on top becomes its own line with no GST. When two purchases fit, you pick.

Finds what's missing

Card purchases with no receipt are listed by person. The morning after a purchase shows, its cardholder is emailed, again three days later, then once more. Nobody gets more than one email a day.

Checks it by IRD's rules

Over two hundred dollars the shop's GST number must be printed; over a thousand your business must be named. Up to two hundred dollars your own record is enough when there's no receipt. Foreign currency has no GST.

Who approves whose

Each person's receipts go to one person to check and approve, on screen or on their phone. The owner can approve anyone's, their own included, and that's recorded.

Into Xero

An approved receipt goes into Xero as a spend from the card's account, coded and with the receipt attached, next to its card purchase. A receipt paid with someone's own money becomes a bill to them, paid back with your other bills.

A Monday email

Every Monday morning: how many receipts came in last week, how many are waiting to be checked, what's missing and whose, and whose receipts are waiting for which approver. It goes to you, or to whoever you choose in Settings.

Bills passed on

A supplier's bill to pay later that someone snapped by mistake goes to the Invoice Entry Assistant in one press, when you have it, and comes off your receipts.

Personal purchases

A personal purchase on the company card is marked personal and the person is emailed to pay it back. It never goes into Xero as a business cost.

1. 1

   The card purchase comes in

   Each morning your bank feed brings in yesterday's card purchases, each with the last four digits of its card, so we know whose it is.

2. 2

   The receipt comes in

   Someone snaps it on their phone, or forwards an emailed receipt. It's read and matched to its purchase, often before the purchase shows.

3. 3

   It's checked

   The checks run, the shop's usual account and job are filled in, and it's marked ready, or to check with the one thing it needs.

4. 4

   Their approver approves it

   The person who approves that cardholder's receipts checks it and approves it, one at a time or all the ready ones together.

5. 5

   It goes into Xero

   It goes in next to its card purchase with the photo. In Xero you open the card account's reconcile and press OK.

6. 6

   Missing ones are asked for

   Purchases still without a receipt are asked about the next morning, and you can ask now from Missing.

1. 1

   You and your cards

   Add yourself as the owner, and pair each card from your bank feed with its account in Xero.

2. 2

   People

   Say who holds each card, add anyone who pays for things themselves, and choose who approves whose receipts.

3. 3

   Coding

   Bring in your Xero accounts and, if you track jobs, your job list.

4. 4

   Try it

   Send yourself your receipts link and photograph a receipt.

5. 5

   Go live

   Choose the date to start from, and send each person their receipts link.

Every Buildloop assistant works off your AI control centre, which holds your company details, knowledge and settings, trains each assistant and passes what one learns to the others. The more it knows about your business the more accurate every assistant is, and each one you add makes the others stronger.

Your AI control centre keeps what it knows about your business in Content Sections you can open, check and add to, with what's missing shown. Each says whether it's for customers, staff or both. You start with About the business, Products and services, Pricing, Payments, Opening hours, Contact details, Locations and service areas, Booking and ordering, Delivery and collection, Returns, refunds and warranty, Terms and policies, Common questions, Staff knowledge, Other, and can add, rename or remove them; the AI suggests sections from what it reads. How we talk, Rules and Suppliers are kept beside them.

Xero

Needed. Spends from your card accounts with the receipt attached, bills to people who paid themselves, and your accounts and jobs.

Bank feeds (Akahu)

Optional. Your card purchases each morning, with the card they were on, from the AI control centre.

Email

Needed. Your people's links, asking for missing receipts, and receipts forwarded to your own address.

WhatsApp

Optional, coming. Sending receipts by WhatsApp message.

• Each receipt before it goes into Xero, by the person who approves that cardholder's receipts (or the owner)
• Each email to your people: their link, a sign-in code they asked for, the asks for missing receipts, telling someone they now approve another person's receipts, the Monday email, and asking for a personal purchase to be paid back

NZ$49 a month, including 100 receipts a month, then NZ$0.30 for each receipt after that. Cancel any time. Plus a one-off set-up and configuration fee, agreed after a short call about your business. Every account also has the AI control centre, NZ$49 a month, once for all its assistants.

• It doesn't pay anyone back: a bill to the person goes into Xero for you to pay with your other bills.
• Without a bank feed it can't tell you which receipts are missing; receipts still go into Xero for it to match.
• Some banks can't share business card purchases yet (banks have until 1 June 2027).
• Mileage claims come in the next release, and WhatsApp once Meta approves it.
• An existing Xero connection needs connecting again once, to allow spends from card accounts.
• Each receipt goes to one account and one job; splitting a receipt across jobs is done in Xero for now.

• Receipt photos and what was read are kept in Sydney, while you use the assistant. The record IRD needs is the copy attached in Xero.
• Each person's link opens only their own receipts, and those they approve. A link can be stopped at any time from People.
• Card numbers are never stored: only the last four digits the bank shares.