Deep Dive: Receipt upload best practices (web)

Alejandro Paz
Alejandro Paz Expensify Team Posts: 87 Expensify Team
edited October 2020 in Deep Dive Docs

Overview

Outside of our SmartScan options, using a mobile device, or forwarding your receipts via receipts@expensify.com, the final way is to directly upload receipts through the Expenses page or by dragging and dropping the receipt file into Expensify. In this post, I'll go over some of the best practices when uploading your images using web:

Accepted Files

Before getting started, let's make sure that you're using an approved file type. These are the types of files we recommend when uploading a receipt:

  • GIF
  • JPG
  • PNG
  • PDF

Direct Upload from web

To directly upload a receipt from your computer: 

  1. Click "New Expense" on the Expenses page. 

  2. Select "Scan Receipt" and choose the file you would like to upload.


  3. You can also drag and drop the receipt file into your account.


Adding a Document

In the case where you have additional documents to support your receipt you can add them to your report as Documents. To add a Document to your report click the paperclip icon on the right-hand side of your report comment box and upload your file. 

All supporting documents or receipts that were directly added to a report (not an expense) will be found in the Report History and Comments section of the report.


What is the difference between a receipt, an expense, and a document?

For the sake of locating different items in your Expenses list, we've assigned certain criteria for each of these. Here's an example of each:

  • Receipts include the image of the receipt, as well as any expense information (the date, merchant, amount of the purchase as well as any categories, tags, etc.) In accounting terms, this is the "line item". When a receipt is SmartScanned, the result is this receipt with these details populated for you. This Receipt list could be receipts linked with a credit card expense, those waiting to link to a credit card expense, and receipts that do not have a credit card expense to match to (cash expense). 


  • Expenses are entries that do not yet have a receipt image. These are most often expenses imported from a personal, business or company card, but can also include manually created expenses.


  • Documents can be added as attachments to the report. These do not contain expense information, and are not SmartScanned. They offer additional information to supplement the report, such as a bank statement. 


The receipt is in, what's next?

Your receipt has been added to Expensify and entered as an expense either by SmartScan or manually.

  • If your company is using Scheduled Submit, your expenses will fall to an open report and will either submit automatically, or you can submit it manually, depending on the settings

  • Company not using Scheduled Submit? You can still set this up yourself in your Account Settings so that your expenses are submitted automatically.

  • If neither of these options are for you, learn how to create a report manually.

Tagged: