The 3 Best Receipt Trackers and Scanners for Small Businesses in 2023

Thanks to its high-quality image resolution and automated company-wide expense tracking, Zoho Expense is Business.org’s top receipt scanner and expense manager. Its scalable plans work just as well for large corporations as they do for small businesses and self-employed freelancers. And even though it has more features than just about any other receipt scanner, Zoho Expense is still extremely affordable—especially its free receipt app, which allows for up to three users.

But one size rarely fits all, including receipt-scanning software. If you’re wondering which receipt-scanning software is best for your unique business, check out our review of the year’s eight best receipt scanners for small businesses.

It’s hard to find an app-based receipt scanner with resolution to rival Expensify’s, but QuickBooks’ comes close. The QuickBooks Online app is exceptionally user-friendly, and both iOS and Android users praise its ease of use and straightforward expense categorization.^4,5 While QuickBooks doesn’t let you add as many users as Expensify does, the priciest QuickBooks plan includes access for 25 users, all of whom can use the QuickBooks app to keep track of receipts.

But for receipt scanning and organization, QuickBooks Online’s best feature is probably its tax categorization. (Intuit, QuickBooks’ parent company, also owns TurboTax.) QuickBooks’ receipt organization by tax category is particularly useful for freelancers who depend on tax write-offs to save money at the end of the year.

Like most other comprehensive accounting options, though, QuickBooks’ receipt scanner doesn’t include any corporate features like company cards or employee reimbursement options. (You’ll only find corporate financial features with expense-focused software like Expensify.) For that reason, we recommend QuickBooks’ receipt-scanning features for freelancers and solopreneurs, not for larger businesses with multiple employees who all report expenses.

If you want to manage corporate expenses with both QuickBooks and Expensify, though, you’re in luck. Both products sync perfectly with each other: if you scan a receipt with Expensify’s app, the data will automatically sync to your financial accounts on QuickBooks.

FreshBooks is one of our favorite accounting software solutions. Its affordable starting price and well-reviewed app make it a solid alternative to QuickBooks (especially for freelancers who want software with a cheaper starting price).

FreshBooks’ main selling point, though, is its easy, professional invoicing. Most notably, FreshBooks lets you attach high-quality scanned receipt images to client invoices, which you can then send on the go. FreshBooks’ mobile accounting and invoicing app is one of the main reasons we recommend it to freelancers and contractors: if you’re documenting expenses for client reimbursement, FreshBooks’ organization helps you get paid the right amount—and on time too.

If you aren’t a contractor or freelancer, FreshBooks’ invoice scanner is a little harder to recommend, especially if you want multiple people to contribute to expense tracking. With FreshBooks, each additional user costs $10 per month. (For example, if you sign up for the $4.50 a month plan but want to add five extra users, your total monthly cost is $54.50.) If collaboration is your aim, you might want to check out Expensify, Zoho Expense, or QuickBooks Online instead.

Zoho Expense is pretty new to the receipt-scanning, expense-tracking field—which is one reason we’re blown away by the sheer amount of stellar features it offers at a completely reasonable price.

For starters, while most free expense-tracking plans limit you to only one user, Zoho’s free receipt app lets you add up to three users on the same account. If you and your business partners track expenses collectively (and if you have just 20 expenses a month), Zoho Expense is easily the most affordable pick.

Zoho Expense is also one of the only expense trackers and receipt scanners to deal with multiple currencies. We can’t recommend Zoho highly enough to business owners who travel internationally or make essential business purchases in more than one country. Plus, if your entire team travels (whether internationally or locally), Zoho’s first paid plan, Premium, adds a slew of traveling and trip-planning features. You can use Zoho Expense to approve travel requests, manage itineraries, set work travel policy, set travel allowances, and automate payments.

Looking for more reasons to try Zoho Expense? Along with multicurrency support, Zoho Expense has a host of unique features, some of which you don’t even get with comprehensive accounting software like QuickBooks:

• Budget management (broken down by project and department), including alerts when budget thresholds are exceeded
• Automatic corporate card reconciliation
• Audit and compliance assistance
• Comprehensive third-party integrations, including QuickBooks Online, Xero, Zoho Books, G Suite, Office 365, Slack, and Amazon Business
• Customer tracking
• Project tracking

Like any software provider, Zoho Expense does have some drawbacks. The free plan limits you to just 20 receipt scans a month, which is five fewer than Expensify’s free receipt scanner app. And while the free plan includes email-based customer support, phone support is limited to only paid plan users. Even paid users can only get assistance during regular working hours: 24/7 support costs an additional fee.

Receipt-tracking software turns your smartphone’s camera into an instant receipt-capturing device. Depending on the software you choose, you can also use it to track business expenses, reimburse employees, and access expense reports easily during tax time. Most (but not all) receipt scanners double as mileage trackers: since mileage is a key tax write-off for the self-employed, it just makes sense to track mileage while categorizing other tax deductible expenses.

A receipt scanner could also be a larger desktop device that you use to scan and upload receipts. But for most business owners (specifically freelancers and self-employed solopreneurs), smartphones are a smaller, simpler, less expensive alternative to pricier printers and scanners. For the purposes of this piece, we’re focusing mainly on receipt-scanning apps, not printers. But if you’d like a few portable scanner recommendations, jump to our FAQ section below.

The right scanner replaces faulty old-school storage methods and sucks (some of) the panic out of audits. It simplifies bookkeeping and frees you up to focus on business activities you actually enjoy. Still not sure which receipt tracker to choose? Here are our recommendations, distilled:

• Zoho Expense is our favorite receipt-scanning software for small-business owners. Even its free plan is incredibly fully featured, giving freelancers and small-business owners a cheap way to prep for tax time and budget for the year. And its paid plans include trip planning and corporate card features, perfect for midsize businesses to international corporations.
• If you’re looking for more than just receipt-scanning software, QuickBooks Online is a good choice. Its fully featured accounting software includes built-in receipt scanning, and its automatic tax categorization simplifies tax time for freelancers.
• If QuickBooks Online doesn’t fit your needs, FreshBooks is a cheaper accounting software alternative. It’s especially good for freelancers and contractors who want to attach receipts and expenses to invoices at the end of a job.

And remember that no matter which receipt scanner app you’re leaning toward, you don’t have to commit without kicking its tires first. Each provider we listed here either is free or offers a free trial.

Want bookkeeping software that supports your receipt scanner? Check out our page on the year’s best small-business accounting software. All of our top picks sync with at least one receipt-scanning app.

Not sure how to scan receipts? If you own a smartphone, you can simply take a picture of the paper receipt. Once you upload the image, you can view your receipt any time using receipt-scanning software. Receipt-scanning software works with emailed receipts too: just forward the email to your receipt-scanning software’s email address or upload the image to your accounting software yourself.

You can also use portable scanners by popular printing companies like Epson and Xerox, such as the Fujitsu ScanSnap or an Epson WorkForce scanner. You can choose from models that range from straightforward flatbed scanners to hefty desktop scanner/printer combos.

Fujitso also offers a receipt app in combination with its portable scanners. Neat Receipts used to be the biggest player in the app/printer combo game, but Neat eliminated its hardware in 2018 and went app-only. Fujitso is the best Neat scanner software alternative we’ve found so far.

Most accounting software solutions, QuickBooks included, already have built-in expense tracking and receipt scanning. (One notable exception is Xero, which unfortunately includes expense tracking with only its most expensive plan). The main reason to add separate receipt-scanning software is if your existing accounting software doesn’t have all the receipt-scanning features you need.

Most bigger companies and corporations will need separate accounting software and expense management software. Otherwise, tracking employee expenses and dealing with reimbursements can become much too complicated. But freelancers, solopreneurs, and other self-employed small-business owners who want to scan, upload, and save receipts with basic expense tracking should be fine with only accounting software.

To rate and review our top receipt-scanning brands, we looked at a dozen of the top receipt-scanning and expense-tracking brands. We also considered the top 10 accounting software solutions that include receipt scanners. We then considered each brand's strengths and weaknesses in the following categories:

• Overall user-friendliness and accessibility
• Receipt-scanning and expense-tracking features
• Pricing
• Customer service hours, modes of contact, and general company reputation

We also considered our accounting expert's opinion and advice when reviewing each software brand. We weighted each category equally to calculate our star ratings, which are subject to frequent review and may change.

Disclaimer

At Business.org, our research is meant to offer general product and service recommendations. We don't guarantee that our suggestions will work best for each individual or business, so consider your unique needs when choosing products and services.