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Log receipts by snapping a photo

Every receipt you photograph ends up as a tidy row in a spending sheet with the date, shop, amount and category.

MoneyIntermediate15 minAI assistantPhone cameraGoogle SheetsGoogle Drive

When to use it

Whenever you get a paper receipt

Set up your sheet and folder
Create a Google Sheet with columns Date, Shop, Amount, Category, Notes. Make a Google Drive folder called Receipts for the photos.
Snap receipts as you go
Photograph receipts flat and in good light, and save them to the Receipts folder from your phone. Do a batch once a week if that's easier.
Turn photos into rows
Once a week, attach that week's receipt photos to your AI assistant with this prompt.
Prompt to copyRead each of these receipt photos. For each one, give me a row with: Date (DD/MM/YYYY), Shop, Total amount, Category (choose from: Groceries, Household, Eating out, Transport, Kids, Health, Gifts, Work expense, Other), and a one-line note of the main items. Return a table only, one row per receipt, with columns in that order. If you can't read a value, write CHECK instead of guessing.
Paste into your sheet
Copy the table and paste it into your sheet. Fix any cell marked CHECK by looking at the photo.
Get a weekly total
Add a simple total at the bottom, or ask the AI to summarise spending by category from your sheet each month.

Faded thermal receipts can be misread, so photograph them soon after you get them.
Keep work-expense receipts in a separate folder so claims are easy later.