Snap a receipt: capture an expense from a photo with AI
Upload a photo or PDF of a receipt and let AI pre-fill the vendor, date, amount and VAT so you just check and save.
Instead of typing out every running cost by hand, you can upload a photo or PDF of a receipt in Expenses and let AI read it for you. It pre-fills the vendor, date, total and VAT amount, and suggests a category, then you check the details and confirm before anything is saved.
What snap-to-fill actually does
On the Expenses page you can upload a receipt image (JPEG, PNG or WebP) or a PDF bill. DashVue stores the file as your evidence for that expense and sends it to AI, which reads the document and returns a draft: the vendor name, the date, the total amount, the VAT amount, and a best-guess category picked from your allowed expense categories.
This is for ongoing business running costs, things like postage, packaging, software and equipment. It is not for stock you are reselling and not for eBay’s own selling fees, which are tracked elsewhere in DashVue.
How to capture an expense from a receipt
- Go to Expenses and choose the option to upload or snap a receipt.
- Select a photo or PDF of the receipt. Files must be JPEG, PNG, WebP or PDF, up to 5MB.
- AI reads the document and returns a draft expense: vendor, date, total, VAT amount and a suggested category.
- Each field comes with a confidence flag. Fields the AI was not confident about are marked low confidence, or left blank rather than guessed, so check those carefully.
- Correct or fill in anything that is wrong, missing or low confidence, then confirm the category and save. Only at this point does it become a real expense entry. The uploaded receipt stays attached to it as your evidence.
AI drafts the expense, it does not save it for you
Uploading a receipt never creates an expense automatically. AI only fills a draft that you review and confirm. If a field is marked low confidence, or left blank, check it against the receipt yourself before saving, the AI can misread poor-quality photos, faded print or unusual receipt layouts. If the file it is given is not recognisable as a receipt or bill at all, it will tell you that rather than inventing numbers.
Limits worth knowing
- Reading a receipt uses one of your AI actions. Every DashVue account gets a monthly allowance of free AI actions, with optional AI packs (AI Lite, AI Pro or AI Elite) if you need more. There is also an hourly cap to stop a single upload spree from burning through your allowance in one go.
- You need permission to edit expenses on your account to use this. On a team, a teammate with restricted access may not see the option.
- Amounts are read as GBP. If VAT is not shown on the receipt, that field is left blank rather than estimated.
Good habits
A flat, well-lit, single receipt per photo reads far more reliably than a crumpled or angled shot, or several receipts in one image. PDF bills from suppliers usually parse cleanly since the text is already digital. Whatever the AI fills in, treat it as a starting draft, a quick check against the original before you save takes a few seconds and keeps your records accurate.
See the related articles below for more on managing expenses and categories in DashVue.
Last updated 2026-07-04.
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