With AI receipt scanning, Avaza reads your receipt photos, PDFs and emailed receipts, and creates a draft expense with the details filled in. You check each draft, complete anything the AI couldn't read, and save it as usual.
Switch on AI receipt scanning
Go to Settings › Expense Settings.
Switch on AI receipt scanning.
Only Administrators can change this switch. Finance Managers can open Expense Settings, but they see "Only administrators can change this setting." On the Free plan the switch is greyed out.
Under the switch, Avaza shows how many receipts the AI has read this month. Each account has a monthly allowance of AI-read receipts. When it's used up, Avaza tells you, and you can still add expenses and attach receipts yourself.
Receipts are sent to Avaza's AI provider only so they can be read. They aren't used to train AI.
Scan receipts from the Expenses page
Go to Expenses, click the arrow next to Add Expense and choose Scan Receipt.
Select one or more receipt photos or PDFs, of up to 10 MB each.
Each file appears in the list straight away with the status AI Processing. Usually within a minute, it becomes a Draft with the details filled in.
You can also drag receipts from your computer and drop them anywhere on the Expenses tab, as many as you like at once.
The AI reads JPG, PNG, GIF, WebP, TIFF and BMP photos, and PDFs, typed or scanned. Other files are skipped with a message. That includes HEIC photos from an iPhone, so save those as JPG first.
To scan, you need the Timesheet/Expense User role or the Administrator role. If you can add expenses for other people, choose the person in the menu next to Submit for Approval first: the drafts are created for them.
Read a receipt in the expense form
When you click Upload Receipt in the New Expense or Edit Expense popup, the AI reads the file and fills in the form. You can keep typing while it works.
- New Expense: anything you've changed since opening the popup is kept. Everything else is replaced by what the receipt shows, including defaults such as today's date and your last-used category. If the AI finds no category or tax, that default is cleared for you to choose.
- Edit Expense: this works for draft, verified and rejected expenses. On an expense that already has an amount, the receipt only fills fields that are still empty.
- Other files, such as a Word document, are attached without being read.
To read a different receipt, click Remove under the preview and upload the new file. An expense keeps one receipt.
Email receipts in
On the Expenses page, click the arrow next to Add Expense and choose Email in Receipts. Click Copy to copy your account's address.
Send or forward receipts to it from the email address on your Avaza account, one receipt per email.
You can send a photo of a paper receipt, a PDF invoice, or an email that is itself the receipt, with nothing attached. Most online receipts show the whole receipt in the email. Receipts that someone forwarded to you work too.
- The AI also reads the email's subject and text. That helps when the photo is unclear, but where they disagree, the attached file wins.
- Logos and signature pictures are ignored, and a receipt the AI can read is picked over other attachments.
- When the email itself is the receipt, a copy is attached to the expense as Emailed receipt.html (or .txt), so approvers can see the original.
- Emailed receipts appear in your list by themselves. You don't need to refresh.
See emailing receipts from your phone for why an email can bounce.
Check and save a scanned expense
Nothing is submitted or approved without you. Click a scanned draft to open Expense Details. The AI fills in whichever of these the receipt shows:
- the merchant, date, amount and currency;
- the category and payment method, chosen only from your own lists;
- the tax, with Tax Inclusive or Tax Exclusive;
- the Merchant Tax Number, such as an ABN or VAT number;
- Notes: a short description of what was bought.
Under History, an Avaza AI entry, Receipt read by AI, lists the fields it filled and says why any were left blank. If the AI couldn't read the file, the entry says so and the receipt stays attached for you.
Click Edit and check the details against the receipt. Click Verify & Save when the expense is complete, or Save as Draft to finish it later. Then submit it for approval as usual. See expense approvals.
A warning icon in the Status column marks drafts that still need an amount, a category or a quantity.
When a receipt is in another currency, the draft takes that currency, with the market exchange rate for the receipt's date. See foreign currencies.
How the AI handles tax, amounts and categories
The AI would rather leave a field blank than guess wrong.
The receipt shows | What Avaza does |
|---|---|
A tax rate that matches one of your tax rates | Selects that tax and sets Tax Inclusive or Tax Exclusive to match. If the receipt doesn't say, it uses Tax Inclusive. |
A tax rate you haven't set up, or one only close to yours | Leaves Tax blank and explains why in History. Add the rate under Settings › Tax so it's picked next time. |
Zero tax | Selects No Tax. |
No printed total | Leaves Amount blank and shows in History what the listed items add up to. |
Nothing that fits your categories | Leaves the category blank. Categories with a unit price, such as mileage, are never picked. |
A date more than 10 years ago, or in the future | Ignores it, so the draft keeps today's date. |
Something that isn't a receipt | Fills in nothing. |
For example, this receipt shows sales tax at 8.8%. Avaza fills in the tax only if your account has an 8.8% rate. See setting up tax.
Who can see scanned receipts?
The same people who can see the expense: its owner, and people who can see everyone's expenses, such as Administrators, Finance Managers and expense approvers.