# Receipts Assistant

Receipts gets every card receipt from your people's phones, matches it to the card purchase, checks it and puts it in Xero ready to reconcile.

Status: available; get started and we set it up with you. Checked 2026-11-06.

## Who it's for
- 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

## The problem it solves
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.

## Why businesses use it
- 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

## What it does
- **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.

## How it works
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. **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. **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. **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. **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. **Missing ones are asked for.** Purchases still without a receipt are asked about the next morning, and you can ask now from Missing.

## Setting it up
About 15 minutes.

1. **You and your cards.** Add yourself as the owner, and pair each card from your bank feed with its account in Xero.
2. **People.** Say who holds each card, add anyone who pays for things themselves, and choose who approves whose receipts.
3. **Coding.** Bring in your Xero accounts and, if you track jobs, your job list.
4. **Try it.** Send yourself your receipts link and photograph a receipt.
5. **Go live.** Choose the date to start from, and send each person their receipts link.

## How it uses the AI control centre
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.

It reads:
- Your business's name, used in the emails to your people
- Your bank feed's card purchases, from the card accounts you give Receipts
- Your Xero connection, for accounts, jobs and card accounts

It adds:
- How each shop is coded: its usual account, job and GST
- Which card each person holds, and who approves whose receipts

## How it gets better
- Each shop's usual account, and whether it goes to a job, from the receipts you approve, into Suppliers in your AI control centre.
- Kept as a test: every receipt you corrected before approving: the next reading must get those fields right.
- Anything it works out for itself waits for you to check before your other assistants use it.

## Training
A screen-by-screen narrated training video and guide are being made.

## What it connects to
- **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

## What a person approves
- 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

## Price
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.

## What it doesn't do
- 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.

## Your data
- 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.

## Questions
**Do my people need an app or a password?**
No. Each gets their own link by email. They open it on their phone and keep it on the home screen.

**What if someone loses a receipt?**
For two hundred dollars or less, IRD accepts your own record of the shop, date, amount and what it was. Over that, it goes in with no GST claimed.

**Can someone other than me approve receipts?**
Yes. Choose who approves each person's receipts on People. They approve on screen or on their phone, and you can still approve anyone's.

**Will it enter things twice in Xero?**
Each receipt goes in once, with a key so a retry never makes a second, and it checks for a receipt already sent with the same shop, day and total.

**What does it cost per receipt?**
A receipt counts once, when it goes into Xero. Each month includes a set number; the price shows above.
