# Turn receipt photos into checked bookkeeping rows > Photograph each receipt and, once a week, ask Claude to read the date, supplier, and amounts into a row you check before typing it into your bookkeeping software. Always check the VAT. Do not give an agent write access. This has not been live-tested. - Task: Receipts into bookkeeping - Tool: Claude - Industries: Tradespeople, Cafes, Consultants, Accountants - Who it's for: A sole trader with a weekly pile of paper or photo receipts who wants a typist, not an agent with permission to post into the accounts. - Time to set up: 30 minutes to set up, then about half an hour a week - Monthly cost (USD): $0–$20 - Monthly cost (GBP, planning figure): about £0–£15 - Difficulty: beginner - Last tested: Not yet tested - Updated: 24 October 2026 Claude's free tier can handle a small weekly batch until you hit the cap. Pro was listed at $20 a month, or $17 if billed annually, about £15 or £13 at the planning rate. Purpose-built capture tools such as Dext cost more and may still be the better product if the pile is large. Check current prices. GBP figures are a budgeting conversion at £1 = $1.33 and €1 = £0.86, rounded to the nearest pound, fixed for this edition on 24 October 2026. They are not a live rate and not a quote. Vendor list prices are usually quoted before tax. ## Before you start Categories should match the list your accountant already uses. Put that list in the Claude Project. A fresh set of categories every week is how "fuel", "diesel", and "van" become three lines in a report nobody can read. If a receipt is in a foreign currency, ask for the amount in that currency and convert it yourself from the rate on the card statement. Do not ask the model to pick a rate from memory. ## What you need - A way to photograph or save each receipt on the day you pay. - A sheet with columns for date, supplier, description, net, VAT, gross, and category. - The bookkeeping tool you already use, even if that tool is your accountant. ## Step by step ### 1. Pick one capture habit Choose a single place receipts land: a phone folder called Receipts, or an email to yourself with that subject. Do it when you pay. A card statement is not a substitute when you need the supplier name and the VAT amount. If you already use your accounting app's camera, keep using it and skip this guide. ### 2. Run a weekly batch in Claude Open a Claude Project that lists your regular suppliers, so names stay consistent. Upload a batch of about fifteen receipts. Ask for one row per receipt with date, supplier, net, VAT, and gross, and tell it to write unreadable rather than guess. Tell it to say when a receipt shows no separate VAT amount. Copy the rows into the sheet. ### 3. Check every row against the photo This is the control. Look at the photo and the row together. Correct the VAT yourself. A model that is right fourteen times will still invent a total on the fifteenth, especially on a crumpled thermal receipt. Do not skip the check because the table looks tidy. Smaller batches if you notice yourself skimming. ### 4. Type the checked rows into the real books Enter the corrected rows into your spreadsheet archive or into FreeAgent, Xero, or whatever you and your accountant use. Do not connect Claude to that software with permission to create transactions. A wrong cell is visible. A wrong posting in a live ledger is how a quarter goes missing. If you are in Making Tax Digital, the compatible software is where the figures must end up. ### 5. File the photo with the month Keep the image in a folder for that month. A chat transcript is not the record HMRC may ask for years later. Delete the chat if a photo showed a full card number. Do not upload the back of a card. Once a quarter, pick ten receipts at random and compare photo, sheet, and ledger. More than one mismatch means the batch is too big or the prompt has drifted. ## What can go wrong ### Guessed VAT Some receipts show a VAT number and no VAT amount, or a total that is not twenty percent of a neat net. If the model splits them anyway, you have a fiction. The prompt must prefer unreadable over a tidy guess. ### Write access to the ledger Connectors that can create bills sound like the point. They are how a misread total becomes the accounts. Stay on the copy-and-check side until you have a quarter of clean batches. ### The chat as the archive When the chat is deleted, or the product changes, the photos are gone if you did not file them. The month folder is the record. The chat is scrap paper. ## UK notes ### Costs, including VAT Budget £0 to about £15 a month for Claude at the planning rate, before VAT. A dedicated receipt tool can cost more and be worth it once you are processing every day rather than once a week. Overseas AI subscriptions are often priced before tax. VAT-registered readers may need the reverse charge. Keep the invoice with the other software bills. ### Data flow A receipt can show a supplier, your name, and sometimes a card's last digits. Uploading it sends that image to Anthropic. Do not upload passports, full card numbers, or anything about a person's health. Anthropic's privacy policy describes its processing. You remain responsible for having a reason to send a customer's data, if a receipt identifies one, outside the UK. ### HMRC and Making Tax Digital Self-employed records normally need to be kept for at least five years after the 31 January submission deadline, and VAT records normally for six years. See GOV.UK rather than this page for the rule that applies to you. If Making Tax Digital for Income Tax applies, digital records must be kept in compatible software and quarterly updates sent. This playbook produces a checked list for that software. It does not submit the update and it is not bridging software. HMRC's expenses list is the place to check whether a cost is allowable. This is practical orientation, not tax, legal, or accounting advice. ## Test log - 24 October 2026 — pending. Pending first test. The steps describe a manual check against receipt photos. They have not been run on a live set of receipts or compared with a human bookkeeper. ## Sources - [Anthropic pricing](https://www.anthropic.com/pricing) (accessed 24 October 2026) - [Anthropic privacy policy](https://www.anthropic.com/legal/privacy) (accessed 24 October 2026) - [GOV.UK — self-employed records](https://www.gov.uk/self-employed-records) (accessed 24 October 2026) - [GOV.UK — VAT record keeping](https://www.gov.uk/vat-record-keeping) (accessed 24 October 2026) - [GOV.UK — Making Tax Digital for Income Tax](https://www.gov.uk/guidance/use-making-tax-digital-for-income-tax) (accessed 24 October 2026) ## Disclosure AgentShed is independent and this playbook is not sponsored. There is no affiliate link on this page. If that changes, the link will use rel="sponsored" and a sentence beside it will say so. The verdict is not for sale. ## Questions ### Why not Dext, Hubdoc, or the app I already pay for? If you already have one and you use it, keep it. This guide is for a small pile and a person who will look at every row. It is not a claim that a chat model beats a tool built for receipts. ### Can I do a month in one sitting? You can, and you will miss things. Fifteen receipts is a human attention span. Two short sessions beat one long one. ### What about cash without a receipt? Write down the date, the amount, and what it was for, in the same sheet, and mark that there is no receipt. Do not ask the model to invent a VAT figure for a till you cannot remember. Canonical page: https://agentshed.io/playbooks/claude-receipts-to-bookkeeping