Best App to Keep Receipts for Tax UK 2026

Last updated: August 2026. You're on a job. You've just paid £87 for copper pipe and fittings. The receipt is in your pocket next to the solder. By Friday it will be a grey smudge. HMRC requires you to keep receipts for 6 years. Miss one legitimate expense and it costs you 20% in tax on the difference.

The right receipt app is the one you'll actually use on-site. Here's the honest comparison.

The short answer

If you need…	Use this
Receipt scanning + invoicing + tax in one app	TradeTally (£12/mo Pro or free 2 invoices/mo)
Pure receipt OCR, sync to Xero/QuickBooks	Hubdoc (paid add-on) or Dext (£15-25/mo)
Free receipt capture with UK banking	Starling Bank tools (free with account)
Basic receipt photo, HMRC-compliant storage	Google Photos + a spreadsheet (free, manual)

For UK sole traders in a trade — plumber, spark, plasterer, decorator, joiner — TradeTally is the right answer because it does receipts, invoicing, and SA103F export in one app, and the receipt is automatically linked to the job you're invoicing.

What makes a receipt app good for UK self-employed tax

HMRC doesn't care which app you use. They care that you have:

A digital image of the receipt — photo, OCR, or both.
The amount, date, supplier, and category — extracted and searchable.
6 years of retention — with backup, not on a phone that might get lost.
VAT separation — for VAT-registered businesses, the input VAT gets reclaimed differently to expense cost.

A "good" receipt app does all four without you thinking about it. Most do two or three.

TradeTally in detail

TradeTally's receipt scanner is built into the same app as invoicing. That's the point: you don't pay twice, you don't switch apps, and the receipt for materials is automatically linked to the job you're invoicing.

What it does today

Snap from phone — photograph a receipt, TradeTally reads merchant, amount, date in the background, suggests a category, files it against the open job (or as a general expense).
Auto-categorised — Materials, Tools, Fuel, Parking, Subcontractor, Insurance, Phone, Other.
6-year retention with cloud backup.
Pro plan gives you 50 receipt scans a month. Free tier is 2 invoices and 10 expenses a month; receipt uploads on Free are available but I wouldn't promise "unlimited".
Receipt image is retained for HMRC audit — not just the extracted text.
Categorised for SA103F so the year-end export already maps to HMRC boxes.

What it doesn't do for receipts

No mileage tracker. On the roadmap, not built.
No automatic fuel receipt linking to a mileage trip.
No offline mode for OCR — you need a connection for the read step. You can snap offline, OCR runs when you reconnect.
50 scans/month on Pro is the cap, not "unlimited". Free tier receipts are allowed but you can't invoice them past 2/month.

Why this matters more than the OCR accuracy

The thing that wastes sole traders' time isn't bad OCR — it's forgetting the receipt entirely. TradeTally's "snap and move on" loop, with the receipt automatically filed against the job, is the bit that pays off. The OCR gets it right about 90% of the time on damaged receipts. The other 10% you confirm or correct in 5 seconds.

Hubdoc / Dext

Pure receipt OCR. Best-in-class accuracy. Pushes to Xero, QuickBooks, Sage, FreeAgent. £15-25/mo for the standalone product. You still need a separate accounting app to invoice and file tax.

Worth it if you're committed to Xero or QuickBooks and want the best possible OCR. Not worth it on top of TradeTally because TradeTally already has OCR built in.

Starling Bank tools

Free with a Starling business current account. Auto-categorised transactions from your bank feed, photo attachments, MTD-ready. No CIS, no certificate fields, no parts/labour split, no job linking. Receipt OCR is manual entry only.

Genuinely free and works well for cash-only trades with light admin. For trade-specific work, it's incomplete.

Google Photos + spreadsheet

Snap a photo. File it in a folder. Manually enter amount, date, and category in a spreadsheet. £0.

What you lose: OCR, auto-categorisation, MTD format, backup, mileage linking, job linking. You'll spend 5+ hours at tax time and miss expenses. The accountant's invoice will eat the savings.

The HMRC receipt rules (quick recap)

You must keep records of all business income and expenses. For receipts:

Date of transaction
Amount
Supplier name
Nature of purchase (what it was)
VAT amount (if you're VAT registered)
Digital or physical copy of the receipt itself

You can keep digital or paper, but you need at least one. A photo of a receipt counts as a digital record, as long as the image is legible and stored securely (not just on a phone that could be lost).

Which one to pick

You're a UK sole trader in a trade: TradeTally, £12/mo Pro or free.
You already pay for Xero or QuickBooks and hate their receipt handling: add Hubdoc or Dext.
You have a Starling account and light admin: Starling tools are genuinely free.
You do less than 20 receipts a month and are happy with manual: Google Photos + spreadsheet works.

Frequently asked questions

Does HMRC accept digital receipt photos?

Yes. HMRC accepts digital copies of receipts, including photos, as long as the image is legible and the digital record is preserved for 6 years. A photo on your phone is acceptable if it's backed up to the cloud and not just on the device.

Can I just take photos with my phone and not use an app?

Technically yes. Practically, you lose OCR, categorisation, and MTD compatibility. From April 2026, £50k+ earners need records in HMRC-recognised software, not a camera roll.

How long must I keep receipts?

6 years from the end of the tax year. For MTD quarterly updates, the digital record needs to be queryable and exportable, not just an image in a folder.

What if a receipt is faded or damaged?

Take the photo anyway. TradeTally and Hubdoc both handle damaged receipts well — usually extracting amount and supplier even when other fields are illegible. You can also write the details on the photo using the app's annotation tool.

Do I need a separate VAT receipt tracking system?

If you're VAT registered, yes — the VAT amount on each receipt needs to be extractable for your VAT return. TradeTally and Hubdoc both auto-extract the VAT line.

Can my accountant access my receipt app?

TradeTally and FreeAgent both offer free accountant access. Hubdoc pushes data directly to your accountant's Xero or QuickBooks.

Get started

TradeTally costs £12/month. No setup fee. No annual contract. Cancel anytime.

14-day free trial (no card required)
Snap, OCR, and file receipts in 10 seconds
Auto-categorised with UK tax codes
Free accountant access
Built by a plasterer who still gets dusty

Start free trial → · See pricing