Hey @CarbisDeb and welcome to Wave's Community Forum! Thanks for adding your input into this feature idea. For some insight, the the receipts app works by using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to look in specific areas of the receipt for information. Invoices often have this information in different areas than receipts do, so this means that the current partner integration that we use for OCR would not work for invoices. While we definitely hear that an OCR for invoicing would be helpful, it isn't currently supported in Wave. For that reason, many Wavers opt to use an online storage system (like Dropbox) to store the receipt image, and will add the link to the dropbox image to the Wave transaction notes. This allows them to be able to access the receipt image if they are audited.
Hey @SI_MN, thanks for reaching out here. I'm sorry that this is not something we currently offer within the platform, but I'm glad you were able to find a way to find these duplicated transactions with the code you've written!
Hi there, wanted to add some insight to this thread.
Currently there are 2 leaders right now in the receipt OCR space - ReceiptBank and AutoEntry.
The former has "Bank Feed Match" and the latter calls theirs "File Match" - which essentially OCR's receipts and automatically matches and attaches to existing transactions entered within the accounting software that they integrate with. The limitation however, is that they only match transactions up to 6 months prior.
If Wave could natively (or by partner integration) allow for bulk receipt upload, OCR, then file match & attach, AND with no time limitation i.e. match receipts back in time indefinitely, instead of merely 6 months, this would be an absolute game changer for the software.
You guys would be the leader of the pack in workflow efficiency for the DIY business owner.
At that point, I would beg you to take my money.
Let me know if this ever might one day become a reality, and if so how far in the future that would be.
We are likely going to see some changes coming to our receipts and transactions very soon. I wish I had an ETA, but I know that our team is eager to get working on this.
I'm so close to switching over from a competing service. I currently am fully absorbed in their service, but I like Wave a lot more after testing it out for only a few days. Unfortunately the only killer here is this feature. The competing service I use automatically connects receipts to transactions. I scan, email and attach so many receipts that this process on Wave would be an incredible hassle, and I would rather continue to pay their monthly fee to have this feature available to me. It's the only thing holding me back from switching over at the moment, but I'm really looking forward to hopefully seeing this added!
I really love Wave. But I can't believe you can't just attach a receipt to a transaction. Please make this happen! Or otherwise, at the very least, help us by "FLAGGING" what may be a duplicate, to make matching and merging easier. That still doesn't solve the issue of having to do everything twice and what to do with PDF receipts. But I'm really not sure if I should go all in with switching everything over to Wave for 2021 (including receiving payment through Wave) unless there can be an easier workflow with Receipts and Transactions! Thank you so much.
Truly stunning that this feature isn't a top priority for the development team given how many threads exist on the Community forum that relate to this issue. I see a different thread on this subject that dates back three years. Wave is an amazing product and hopefully the developers hear the strong demand for this crucial and missing expense tracking functionality. What good is a receipt scanner built into your app if it's so tedious to match those images to the correct expenses in the accounting system?
Hi everyone! Thanks so much for your feedback here. Wave is always trying to improve with every update we make so this input is really helpful to our team. Please feel free to reach out again if you have any other feedback for us!
So far I love Wave! I started using it January 1, 2021. But now after trying to load my expenses, I think I am going to have to change accounting software. has there been a fix for this? I have been using Quickbooks for my other company, and dragging a receipt into an expense is so much easier! WAVE if your software can't do this, I will have to switch! let me know!
As it currently stands, you cannot attach or link a receipt to an existing transaction. With that being said, if you post a receipt to accounting, generating a new transaction, and you have the same corresponding expense transaction already in Wave, you can merge the two transactions. I hope this helps.
How is it possible that even after this most recent update you still can't post a receipt directly to a transaction? This is the PRIMARY FUNCTION of accounting software. What is wrong with your developers that you can't add something this simple and necessary to Wave? Using Wave currently takes about 3x longer than it should because of this bizarre duplicate/merge nonsense.
Please do not remove the existing receipt function! Don't get me wrong, I love the new functionality you are rolling out to upload a receipt directly to a transaction! That is fantastic and eliminates a bunch of double work as this thread explains...I love it. That said, there are plenty of situations where generating a transaction from a receipt is super helpful! Perhaps there is a transaction that happened outside of a connected bank account (cash for instance) that needs to be input. Right now, all I have to do is upload a receipt to create that transaction, but if you remove this functionality, then I'll have to do double work by creating a transaction manually and then upload a receipt to that transaction. Also, let's say only part of a transaction is an expense that I can write off for business taxes. I'll need to upload a receipt for the part of the transaction that qualifies, and then have the remainder of the transaction as a separate transaction. This is easily done by uploading the receipt and creating one transaction, while editing the other transaction. If you remove this functionality, I'll have to create transactions manually... I highly urge you to keep both functionalities and not remove the existing receipt functions. Both should live together in the system.
Comments
definitely need this function - if you scan a receipt - why can't you scan an invoice ?
Hey @CarbisDeb and welcome to Wave's Community Forum! Thanks for adding your input into this feature idea. For some insight, the the receipts app works by using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to look in specific areas of the receipt for information. Invoices often have this information in different areas than receipts do, so this means that the current partner integration that we use for OCR would not work for invoices. While we definitely hear that an OCR for invoicing would be helpful, it isn't currently supported in Wave. For that reason, many Wavers opt to use an online storage system (like Dropbox) to store the receipt image, and will add the link to the dropbox image to the Wave transaction notes. This allows them to be able to access the receipt image if they are audited.
I'm finding it very difficult you don't auto reconcile/merge receipts with credit card translations. Wave keeps saying "we make it easy" but its really not... See my latest recommendations.
https://community.waveapps.com/discussion/comment/38980#Comment_38980
and...
https://community.waveapps.com/discussion/comment/34658#Comment_34658
Hey @SI_MN, thanks for reaching out here. I'm sorry that this is not something we currently offer within the platform, but I'm glad you were able to find a way to find these duplicated transactions with the code you've written!
Hi there, wanted to add some insight to this thread.
Currently there are 2 leaders right now in the receipt OCR space - ReceiptBank and AutoEntry.
The former has "Bank Feed Match" and the latter calls theirs "File Match" - which essentially OCR's receipts and automatically matches and attaches to existing transactions entered within the accounting software that they integrate with. The limitation however, is that they only match transactions up to 6 months prior.
If Wave could natively (or by partner integration) allow for bulk receipt upload, OCR, then file match & attach, AND with no time limitation i.e. match receipts back in time indefinitely, instead of merely 6 months, this would be an absolute game changer for the software.
You guys would be the leader of the pack in workflow efficiency for the DIY business owner.
At that point, I would beg you to take my money.
Let me know if this ever might one day become a reality, and if so how far in the future that would be.
Hey there @RideTheWave
Thanks for this insight, love your enthusiasm.
We are likely going to see some changes coming to our receipts and transactions very soon. I wish I had an ETA, but I know that our team is eager to get working on this.
I'm so close to switching over from a competing service. I currently am fully absorbed in their service, but I like Wave a lot more after testing it out for only a few days. Unfortunately the only killer here is this feature. The competing service I use automatically connects receipts to transactions. I scan, email and attach so many receipts that this process on Wave would be an incredible hassle, and I would rather continue to pay their monthly fee to have this feature available to me. It's the only thing holding me back from switching over at the moment, but I'm really looking forward to hopefully seeing this added!
I really love Wave. But I can't believe you can't just attach a receipt to a transaction. Please make this happen! Or otherwise, at the very least, help us by "FLAGGING" what may be a duplicate, to make matching and merging easier. That still doesn't solve the issue of having to do everything twice and what to do with PDF receipts. But I'm really not sure if I should go all in with switching everything over to Wave for 2021 (including receiving payment through Wave) unless there can be an easier workflow with Receipts and Transactions! Thank you so much.
Truly stunning that this feature isn't a top priority for the development team given how many threads exist on the Community forum that relate to this issue. I see a different thread on this subject that dates back three years. Wave is an amazing product and hopefully the developers hear the strong demand for this crucial and missing expense tracking functionality. What good is a receipt scanner built into your app if it's so tedious to match those images to the correct expenses in the accounting system?
Hi everyone! Thanks so much for your feedback here. Wave is always trying to improve with every update we make so this input is really helpful to our team. Please feel free to reach out again if you have any other feedback for us!
So far I love Wave! I started using it January 1, 2021. But now after trying to load my expenses, I think I am going to have to change accounting software. has there been a fix for this? I have been using Quickbooks for my other company, and dragging a receipt into an expense is so much easier! WAVE if your software can't do this, I will have to switch! let me know!
Hey @SnowaNoah !
As it currently stands, you cannot attach or link a receipt to an existing transaction. With that being said, if you post a receipt to accounting, generating a new transaction, and you have the same corresponding expense transaction already in Wave, you can merge the two transactions. I hope this helps.
How is it possible that even after this most recent update you still can't post a receipt directly to a transaction? This is the PRIMARY FUNCTION of accounting software. What is wrong with your developers that you can't add something this simple and necessary to Wave? Using Wave currently takes about 3x longer than it should because of this bizarre duplicate/merge nonsense.
Please do not remove the existing receipt function! Don't get me wrong, I love the new functionality you are rolling out to upload a receipt directly to a transaction! That is fantastic and eliminates a bunch of double work as this thread explains...I love it. That said, there are plenty of situations where generating a transaction from a receipt is super helpful! Perhaps there is a transaction that happened outside of a connected bank account (cash for instance) that needs to be input. Right now, all I have to do is upload a receipt to create that transaction, but if you remove this functionality, then I'll have to do double work by creating a transaction manually and then upload a receipt to that transaction. Also, let's say only part of a transaction is an expense that I can write off for business taxes. I'll need to upload a receipt for the part of the transaction that qualifies, and then have the remainder of the transaction as a separate transaction. This is easily done by uploading the receipt and creating one transaction, while editing the other transaction. If you remove this functionality, I'll have to create transactions manually... I highly urge you to keep both functionalities and not remove the existing receipt functions. Both should live together in the system.
Pat yourselves on the back.