There are a few different ways that receipts can be uploaded to ProSpend

1. By far the easiest, is snapping them with your iPhone or Android device via the ProSpend app.
2. Email receipts directly into your document vault for scanning -  this is great for email receipts you receive. 
3. The final way is to directly upload receipts through the expenses page or your document vault

Receipt Capture

When taking a photo of a receipt, the systems' ability to collect the relevant information from the document (Gross Total, Tax Total and Date for receipts) will be dependent on the clarity and format of the image that is uploaded to the Vault. In practice, the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) used at ProSpend require consistent and clear information with minimal conflicting values in order to return consistent results.

Images that are in focus, have consistent lighting and are free from handwritten additions, folds, creases, etc will generally scan better, further to this, instances where multiple documents are present within the one image will return less consistent result, particularly where there is more than one date, or total amount present.

In the example below, we have two images of the same document, the image on the left contains the “full” document, including a lot of redundant information as well as not being as clearly in focus. The one on the right contains only the information relevant for the upload and as a result will return a more consistent, accurate, scan. 

Your document vault

Every user in ProSpend with the Claimant Role enabled has a document vault and this is where your receipts will be stored until our smart matching process matches them automatically to an expense line or when you choose to attach them to an expense line manually. This can be accessed from your “My Spend” role under “View Documents”:

Send receipts to your document vault email address

Any documents sent to to your Receipt Vault Email as attachments will be scanned and output to ProSpend as Receipts to be attached to your Cash/Reimbursement Claims and Card Claims:

The same logic applies to any attachments sent to the Invoice Vault email, though these will be scanned and output as Supplier Invoice Claims instead of Receipts to attach to Cash/Reimbursement Claims or Card Claims.

Snap a receipt on the ProSpend app

Click on the + icon and select “New Receipt” from there you will be able to capture an image by clicking on the Camera Icon on the top right. From here you also have the ability to “Pre-Code” the Receipt to attribute an Expense Type, Cost Centre, Tax Code, etc that will then feed through to the Expense the receipt is attached to.

Direct upload

You also have the ability to upload Expense receipts directly from your Computer into the vault via the Upload function:

Image Requirements for Documents Uploaded to the Vault

In order for a Document to be scanned and output to ProSpend it must meet the below requirements:

• The document must be of .pdf, .jpg, .gif , .png, .heic format
• The total size of all the documents in one email must be less than 10MB.
• If a document is being resent, it cannot have the same filename.
• The filename of the document must be less than 60 characters
• The document has to be an attachment. It cannot be embedded within the body of the email (example - html receipts).
• An email cannot have a mix of .pdfs and images (.jpg, .gif and .png). If an email with both .pdfs and images is sent across, the system will only accept the .pdfs and ignore the images.
• The image (.jpg, .gif and .png) size is at least 300x300px

Editing Receipts in the Vault

You have the ability to “Pre-Code” a Receipt in the Vault, which can be quite useful for Card Transactions as there can be a few days delay between when a transaction takes place, and when the Expense appears in ProSpend, this can also be useful in an instance where a document outputs as “incomplete” normally communicating that either the Document Date, or Transaction Total was not able to be scanned by the OCR:

From here you can update the “Claim Type Generic" values, though any restrictions that are set at the Claim Type level (such as restrictions to certain Expense Types) won't be present here:

Option to Delete or Archive Documents Manually in the Vault

There is functionality within the Vault to allow documents that were incorrectly uploaded, or were attached to an Expense but not automatically archived to be removed from the vault. In the vault, you will see either a Delete button for documents that are not linked to an expense, or an archive button for documents attached to submitted claims that were not automatically archived:

You can click on that option to remove that document manually. The system will bring up a confirmation prompt for the Deletion/Archival accordingly:

Any Documents that are deleted won't be accessible in the vault anymore, and any that are archived will still be present against their linked Expense ID, but will not appear in the Vault.