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YES

As of 13 August 2026, AI can extract data from receipts.

This still needs a person who signs their name to it.

Can you do it?

5 minutesto a draft.

30 minutesto something you’d act on.

Cost, all in£0

Skill neededchat-fluent

Who has to check ityou

What the alternative costsA spreadsheet or expense-management system can provide the controlled destination for the extracted data, but no alternative price is given here.

If this goes wrong: incorrect totals, dates or VAT values enter your expense records and need to be found and corrected before they affect reporting or reimbursement.

What to actually do

  1. Hand it to a person

    The route this page recommends

    A person who owns the outcome does this end to end, worth it when the failure is dear.

  2. Use a tool built for this

    Second choice

  3. Do it yourself

    The distant third

    A chat interface, chat-fluent skill, and roughly 30 minutes until you can act on the result.

    How to actually do it

    1. Open a new chat with image or file upload enabled and gather the original receipt photographs or scans at their clearest available quality.
    2. Remove duplicate images, give each file a distinct name, and separate receipts that belong to different people, projects or reporting periods.
    3. Paste the prompt and upload a small batch of receipts, rather than sending the whole archive at once.
    4. Copy the returned table into the spreadsheet or expense system where the records will be kept, retaining the source file name beside each row.
    5. Open every receipt marked [CHECK] or with a missing value and compare the supplier, date, subtotal, VAT and total directly against the image.
    6. Reconcile the checked totals and VAT amounts with your business expense policy and current accounting records before sending the data to payroll, finance or your accountant.
    7. Keep the original receipt files with the final rows so a colleague or accountant can trace each entry back to its source.

    Prompt

    Extract data from the attached receipt images. Return one row per receipt in a table with these columns: file name, supplier name, receipt date, currency, subtotal, VAT amount, total, receipt number, payment method, and visible business address. Use UK date format where the receipt supports it and preserve the currency shown. Copy values exactly as printed, do not calculate missing amounts, and leave a field blank when it is absent or unreadable. Mark any uncertain value with [CHECK] and briefly state what is unclear below the table. Do not invent supplier names, dates, VAT numbers, categories or totals. If a receipt contains no VAT, write 'not shown' rather than assuming the transaction is VAT-free. Keep each receipt separate and include a short list of image files that could not be read.

    Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.

What it gets wrong

  • AI cannot reliably read blurred, folded, badly lit or partly hidden receipts.
  • It cannot know whether a purchase is allowable under your organisation's expense policy without that policy and the relevant business context.
  • It cannot safely infer VAT treatment or correct a receipt that contains contradictory figures.
  • It does not remove your responsibility for protecting receipt images that contain names, addresses, payment details or other private data.
  • It cannot guarantee that a long batch has been extracted without omissions, duplicated receipts or shifted columns.

Even on a YES, the friction has a name: verification cost, stakes of error and private data access.

How we scored this

Five axes, each scored nought to two by hand: ten means AI carries the task cleanly, and the thresholds that turn a total into YES, PARTLY or NO are published in the methodology. Each axis name links to its definition.

AxisScore (0–2)
Output2
Inputs2
Verification1
Liability1
Effort delta2
Total8 / 10

The methodology and its thresholds are published in full.

FAQ

Can ChatGPT read data from receipts?
Yes. A current chatbot can read uploaded receipt images and extract common fields into a table, provided the images are legible. Check every uncertain value and retain the original receipt beside the extracted row.
Can AI extract VAT from receipts?
It can copy a visible VAT amount and flag receipts where VAT is absent or unclear. It cannot reliably decide the correct VAT treatment when the receipt is incomplete, so compare the result with the receipt and ask your accountant about disputed cases.
Can AI put receipt data into Excel?
Yes. Ask for a consistent table or CSV with one row per receipt, then paste or import it into Excel. Check that columns have not shifted and that dates, decimal places and currency values remain correct.
Is it safe to upload work receipts to AI?
It depends on the service, your organisation's policy and the information visible on the receipts. Remove unnecessary personal or payment details where possible, avoid uploading confidential material without approval, and treat the extracted data as not professional advice when it affects accounting or VAT.

Nearby answers

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Assessed by gpt-5.6-luna (gpt-5.6-luna) on 2026-08-13, second-checked by an independent model. Wrong somewhere? Email [email protected] and it gets re-checked.

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