Scan a receipt into Excel when you have dozens of receipts or need the image as a record, and type it when you have a handful. A typed receipt takes about a minute, a scanned one about half that, so the saving only matters once the pile grows past roughly 50.
How long does it take to type a receipt into Excel?
Typing one receipt into Excel takes about a minute: a few seconds to find the date, vendor and total, then the typing, a category and the move to the next row. That is the figure this post uses. Time five of your own receipts, because crumpled and long ones run slower.
Price the minute with the formula in the manual data entry cost post: count, times seconds each, divided by 3,600, times your hourly rate. At $25 an hour, one receipt at 60 seconds costs about 42 cents.
Typing a receipt usually means four cells: date, vendor, total and a category such as fuel or supplies. Some people add a tax amount or a payment method. Every extra cell adds seconds, so decide the columns once and keep to them.
The table compares typing with a phone scan at 10, 50 and 200 receipts. The scan figure assumes 35 seconds a receipt: photograph it, name the file, and fix the total that text extraction got wrong. All values are examples at $25 an hour.
| Receipts (example) | Typed at 60 seconds | Cost | Scanned at 35 seconds | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | 10 minutes | $4.17 | 6 minutes | $2.43 |
| 50 | 50 minutes | $20.83 | 29 minutes | $12.15 |
| 200 | 200 minutes | $83.33 | 117 minutes | $48.61 |
At 10 receipts the difference is under two dollars, which is less than the time it takes to set up a scanning routine. At 200 it is about $35.
Free ways to scan a receipt into Excel from a phone
You can scan a receipt for $0 with the camera on the phone you already carry. A photo or a scanner-app PDF gives you a picture of the receipt. Getting the numbers into cells still takes a typing step, unless your phone can copy text out of an image.
Three free routes cover most people:
- Photograph and file. Take a clear photo and save it in a folder named by month. You type the totals later, but the image proves the purchase.
- Copy the text from the photo. Many phones can select and copy text that appears in an image. Paste it into a cell, then split the date, vendor and total with Text to Columns.
- A free scanner app. It crops and flattens the receipt into a PDF. Check the app's terms, because free apps differ in what they do with your images.
Whatever you use, the output is raw text that you check. A total read as 18.40 when the receipt says 16.40 looks fine in a cell. Compare the total column with the card statement at the end of the month.
If a receipt arrives as a PDF, for example an emailed e-receipt, the tools for importing a PDF into Excel with Get Data may pull the figures out without any retyping.
Receipt scanning edge case: faded thermal paper
Faded thermal paper is the receipt printed on shiny paper without ink, which turns pale or blank with heat, light and time. A scan of a faded receipt comes out nearly blank, so no scanner or text extraction can read it. Capture the receipt the day you get it.
Take the photo the same day, before the print fades. If it has already faded, try a photo in bright, even light against a dark background, or raise the contrast in the phone's photo editor. Sometimes that brings back a total.
When the print is gone, the receipt is not the only record. Look up the charge on your card or bank statement, which has the date, the merchant and the amount. Write the purchase reason in a note column.
Do you need receipts if the bank statement shows the charge?
A bank statement shows the date, merchant and amount of a card charge, which is often all a spreadsheet needs. It does not show what you bought, the tax split or the itemised lines. Whether that is enough depends on the purpose of your records.
Keep the receipt when you need to show what a purchase was for, when you claim a return or warranty, or when a rule or an accountant asks for the document. Rules about records differ by country and by purpose, so ask your accountant or check your tax authority before you throw receipts away.
If you only need to know where the money went, the statement is faster than any receipt method. One statement holds every card charge for the month in order. Converting it gives you all of those rows at once, instead of one receipt at a time. CheapBankConvert, not yet open, lists an early price of $2.99 for a statement of up to 10 pages, with the first 2 pages previewed free.
For work done outside your own sheet, what outsourced data entry costs shows the price of paying someone to key a pile of receipts. Briefing and checking add time to any quote, so compare it with your own minute per receipt. To convert the statement instead, get started.