Why Should Companies Use a Receipt Scanner App?

Bezala, Europe's most automated receipt scanner app, was developed to solve a problem. It was born out of the frustration of accountants. In 2014, we interviewed a group of accountants and asked them what the most time-consuming part of their job was.

The answers that accountants from different companies gave clearly pointed out, that the most time-consuming tasks were dealing with receipts and travel invoices. And it was not only time-consuming for accountants, but also for employees and front-line staff.

The travel invoice process is in brief the creation, review and approval of a travel invoice, the reimbursement of the expense to the person who created the invoice, usually the employee, and the related accounting process.

Expenses must be recorded in the correct accounts in the company's accounting system. The accounting requirements for expense vouchers, or receipts, require that the following items are clearly shown on the receipt:

• the nature of the transaction
• when it was made
• with whom
• for what amount
• what VAT is included in the transaction

We at Bezala wanted to dig deeper into the processes of handling receipts and travel invoices to identify the time and nerve consuming factors and possibly find solutions to fix them.

What if accountants didn't have to manually enter receipt data into their system? What if, for example, a company's credit card invoices were automatically logged by an app and email invoices could be automated to go directly into the system, which would log the information without anyone having to enter them manually? This would also make things easier for employees, and there would be no more missed receipts.

We wanted to make the travel invoice process quick and easy.

Time is money, but mistakes cost money too

The travel invoice process involves the invoice author, the approver (e.g. the manager) and the accountant. When there are many people involved in a process with multiple steps, it usually means there is a chance for errors - forgetting to declare receipts and expenses, data errors or expenses not being approved.

We had already identified the difficulties that accountants have in the process of receipts and travel invoices processing. What about the other two actors in the process?

When we looked into the practices of different companies of different sizes, it soon became clear that the handling of travel invoices and receipts also annoyed the people who created them, i.e. the employees, and caused extra time for the approvers, i.e. the companies themselves.

In addition to the extra time spent, there was also a clear financial loss to the companies due to incorrect and missing receipts.

If receipts are not submitted for accounting purposes, the company is not allowed to deduct VAT on the expenditure

For many people, submitting receipts to the accounts is still one of the most time-consuming work tasks. It can be time-consuming because receipts are often in many different places and in many different formats. Some receipts come in paper form and others can be found electronically.

New receipt scanner app to solve a problem across Europe

We founded Bezala with the aim of saving time, money and nerves at every stage of the receipt and travel invoice handling process and for every actor involved in the process.

The problems were identified for the employee (invoice creator), the accountant and the company (invoice approver):

• Missing / lost / incorrect documents
• Double work
• Excessive data transmission
• Submitting data in time
• Time-consuming verification and approval process
• Slow reimbursement
• Lack of visibility and control over company expenditure
• Errors

The concrete objective in developing Bezala was to automate as many steps of the process as possible for the three different actors (employee, approver, accountant) and to ensure the correctness of the steps by eliminating the possibility of human error.

The Bezala app can be used in the company's various locations across Europe and the United States. Our customers will have one clear way to process receipts and travel invoices in each country where it operates. Read more about the international functionality of the app.

What's better in Bezala?

Bezala automates the accounting, payment and income tax reporting on behalf of the user as much as possible. This is achieved through a wide range of integrations.

Many existing accounting apps have their own travel expense applications. However, they are at best somewhat cumbersome and unfortunately still require manual work.

Bezala performs operations on behalf of its users to minimise errors and save time.

The invoice creator can take a picture of the invoice with their mobile phone and Bezala's scanner will read the amount, date, currency and VAT percentage from the receipt. The invoice creator can add a comment and send the receipt directly to the accounting department.

Bezala can be linked to the credit cards used in the company. In this case, the employee can always see which receipts are still missing in the accounts from the app. Reminders are also sent to users for missing receipts. Find out how you can simplify the process of submitting credit card receipts with Bezala.

Email receipts such as licence fees and marketing invoices can be automatically routed directly to Bezala email.

When the e-receipt is forwarded to the Bezala address, the application automatically performs the following actions:

• Generates a draft receipt
• Saves the email header as a comment on the draft receipt
• Saves the receipt image as an attachment to the draft receipt
• selects the payment method, cost type, cost centre and VAT rate based on any filters created

In addition, there is no need to try to remember to store receipts as they are all stored electronically in one place.

Bezala also allows occasional users to access the travel invoice form.

Investing in automation pays off

Investing in a modern receipt scanner app is worthwhile for a company, as it saves time, nerves and, above all, money.

Bezala is three times faster than traditional methods. It automates most of the processes related to receipts and travel invoices. Automation not only saves time for all parties involved, but also reduces the possibility of human error.

By using Bezala, employees are happier because reimbursements are paid more quickly.

The larger the company, the more money the company saves.

Maybe your company will soon be able to process receipts and travel invoices quickly and easily?