What is the best way to digitize receipts?

Digitizing receipts has become significantly easier in the last few years. The best method for most people is a smartphone camera combined with a receipt app — but here is a full comparison of every approach.

Smartphone camera + receipt app (recommended)

A smartphone camera captures a receipt in under ten seconds. Paired with a receipt app that uses OCR (optical character recognition), the app automatically extracts the merchant name, date, amount, and tax details — no manual entry required. Apps like rct-keep are designed specifically for this workflow. The result is a structured digital record that is searchable, categorised, and backed up to the cloud.

Flatbed scanner

A flatbed scanner produces the highest image quality — useful for receipts with very fine print or for archival purposes. The main downside is inconvenience: you need to be at a desk with the scanner, and scanning one receipt at a time is slow. Best suited to high-value items where quality matters or for end-of-period batch scanning.

Smartphone document scanner app

Apps like Apple Notes, Microsoft Lens, and Adobe Scan use your phone's camera with perspective correction and enhancement to produce PDF-quality scans. Good image quality without dedicated hardware. These produce standalone files (usually PDFs) rather than organised, searchable records, so they work best combined with a folder system or receipt app.

Email forwarding

For email receipts, the best "digitizing" step is simply forwarding to a dedicated receipts folder or directly to a receipt app. No camera needed. This handles the majority of modern receipts (online purchases, subscriptions, and businesses that offer email receipts).

The key principle

The best method is the one you will actually use consistently. A good phone photo taken immediately beats a perfect scan taken three weeks later when you finally get to the office scanner.