Receipts & documents

Every expense in your books is a claim, and the receipt is the proof. Arvello keeps the document with the transaction it belongs to, so when your accountant — or EMTA, the Estonian Tax and Customs Board — asks about a purchase from two years ago, the answer is attached to it.

Attaching a receipt to an expense

Open the expense and drag the file onto the Receipts area, or click it to browse. JPG, PNG, HEIC and PDF files are accepted, so a phone photo of a paper receipt works as well as a supplier's PDF. You can attach more than one document to the same expense — useful when an order confirmation and the actual invoice arrive separately.

Each attachment gets a preview, and a Remove button if you picked the wrong file. Attaching documents works on drafts and finalised expenses alike, so a missing receipt never blocks your bookkeeping — record the expense first, add the paperwork when you find it.

Straight from the expenses list

You don't have to open the expense. The Receipt column on the expenses list has a receipt icon on every row. Roles that can only view expenses see a dash instead of the plus, as they can't add receipts:

• A receipt with a plus means the expense has no receipt yet. Click it to pick a file, or drop a file onto it. The receipt is added to the expense, exactly as if you'd uploaded it on the expense itself.
• A receipt with a tick means it has one (a number instead of the tick shows how many). Click it to see the list of files: each one opens in a new tab, and Add another receipt uploads one more.

The column shows the files attached to the expense, the same ones its Receipts area lists, including a receipt linked to it from Expenses → Receipts. To remove one, open the expense and use Remove. Removing a receipt that came from Expenses → Receipts keeps the file there: the receipt goes back to Needs review, or, if it was matched to its bank payment, stays linked to that payment.

Spotting what's missing

Arvello keeps score of the paperwork for you in three places:

• The expenses list — the Receipt column shows a receipt with a plus (a dash, for roles that can only view expenses) on every expense that still needs a document.
• The expenses dashboard — an Awaiting Receipts count tracks how many expenses are recorded but undocumented.
• The Banking page — a Missing Receipts card counts this month's matched bank payments that were categorised with a deductible VAT code but have no receipt. Review & Upload opens those payments on All Transactions; forward each receipt to your receipt address (see Forwarding receipts by email), and once Arvello matches it to the payment, the payment leaves the list.

The VAT is the point: input VAT you reclaim on the KMD return needs a document behind it, and purchase documents need keeping for seven years. An expense without a receipt is a deduction you may struggle to defend. Only a recorded expense reclaims VAT, though: a bank payment categorised straight to an expense account books none, whatever its VAT code — that's the VAT the Missing Receipts card shows. To reclaim it, use Undo Categorise on the payment in All Transactions and record the purchase as an expense with its receipt.

Asking an employee for the receipt

When someone else has the receipt, for example an employee who paid with the company card, ask them for it from the payment itself. In Banking → All Transactions, open the menu on the payment's row and choose Ask for the receipt. Pick the person under Who should send it?, add a note if it helps (which hotel, which trip) and press Send the request. Only people with an employee login are listed, including team members linked to their person on People.

The person gets an email and uploads the receipt from their own pages. It's attached to the payment straight away, so the payment leaves the Missing Receipts list, and to the payment's expense if it's already recorded as one; if you record the expense later, the receipt is added to it then. While the request is open, the payment's status shows the person's name, as in Asked Mari Maasikas; Cancel the receipt request in the same menu withdraws it. You can ask for any payment out of the account that has no receipt attached, one request per payment at a time. Asking needs a role that manages Expenses and can view Banking.

Documents that arrive on their own

Three routes bring the paperwork in without any uploading:

• Received e-invoices — suppliers on the Peppol network deliver invoices straight into Arvello as draft expenses, document included. See E-invoices & Peppol.
• Bank reconciliation — an unexplained outgoing payment can be recorded as a new expense on the spot, and the receipt attached while you're there. See Reconciling transactions.
• Forwarded receipt emails — forward an email with the receipt to your company's own receipt address, described below.

Forwarding receipts by email

Every company has its own receipt address. You'll find it on Expenses → Receipts, in the Forward receipts by email card — press Copy address and save it as a contact in your mail app. Then, whenever a receipt lands in your inbox, forward it there (or set it as the billing email with suppliers that only ever send receipts).

What happens to a forwarded email:

• Attachments are saved. PDF and image attachments are stored as receipts. If the email has no attachment but links to a hosted receipt — a Stripe receipt, for example — Arvello downloads the receipt from the link instead.
• A file Arvello already has is skipped. Each file is stored once, so a receipt you already uploaded on the Receipts page isn't stored or matched again when you forward it.
• Arvello looks for the matching payment. It reads the amount, date and merchant from the email and searches your bank transactions for the outgoing payment. When the email text isn't enough, for example an email that only says "please see attached", Arvello reads the receipt file itself (see How receipt files are read). A clear match is linked automatically. If that payment is already recorded as an expense, the receipt is added to that expense's receipts too, so it stops counting as awaiting one; if you record the expense from the payment later, the receipt is added to it then. Undo that booking, and a receipt Arvello added comes off the expense again, ready for the right one.
• A receipt that arrives before its payment waits for it. Every bank sync and statement import looks again for the payments of receipts still in Needs review from the last 120 days, so a receipt forwarded on the day of purchase is linked once the payment shows up. A payment that already has a receipt isn't given a second one this way.
• Anything unclear waits for you. A receipt with no clear match shows as Needs review, with a badge next to Receipts in the sidebar and a notification. Open it and use Link to expense to attach it yourself, or Dismiss it if it isn't a business receipt. The notification clears itself once no forwarded receipt is waiting for review. If an email contained no receipt at all, you get a notification saying so.

Link to expense lists your expenses, the ones for the receipt's amount first. Linking adds the receipt's file to the expense's receipts, where the expenses list, the Awaiting Receipts count and the VAT return's checks see it; unlinking or deleting the receipt takes it off again.

Where a receipt has got to

The Status column on Expenses → Receipts says how far each receipt has got:

• Needs review: Arvello hasn't found its payment. Use Link to expense, or Dismiss it.
• Payment found: the receipt is linked to its bank payment, but not to an expense yet. While the payment waits in Banking → Reconciliation, the row's button is Record expense (if you can also book bank payments): it opens that payment there, and the expense form shows the receipt and adds it to the expense when you save. Otherwise use Link to expense: when the payment was booked without an expense or excluded, when it's dated on or before your opening balances, when you recorded the expense separately, or when you took this receipt off an expense before (booking the payment won't add it back). While Record expense is shown, Link to expense is in the row's menu.
• On expense: the receipt is on an expense, and the job is done.
• Dismissed: set aside. Restore brings it back.

A sparkle next to the status means Arvello made the match (point at it to see Found automatically). Linked to shows the payment (its date and payee) and the expense on separate lines, with not recorded yet until there is an expense. The filters above the list pick out one stage, so Payment found lists the receipts still waiting for their expense.

Forwarded receipts are listed with the source Forwarded email, next to the ones you upload on the same page with Upload receipt. An uploaded receipt is read and matched to its payment as soon as it's uploaded, and the confirmation says when it was linked; one that isn't waits in Needs review like a forwarded one.

How receipt files are read

Arvello sends the receipt file (a PDF, JPG, PNG, GIF or WebP) to Anthropic's Claude, which reads its total, currency, date and the name of the business that issued it. Nothing else from your books is sent with it, and Anthropic doesn't use it to train its models. The figures are used only to find the bank payment; they don't change any expense or VAT amount, and a wrong match can be unlinked from the receipt's row.

A forwarded receipt's file is read only when the email text didn't already find its payment. A file is read at most once, and each company can have up to 200 files read a month. HEIC photos can't be read, and a receipt over the monthly limit is matched on its email text alone, so an upload then waits in Needs review for you to link it.

Common questions

My file won't upload

Check the format — JPG, PNG, HEIC and PDF files can be uploaded. Word documents and other file types can't; export or print them to PDF first. If the receipt came by email, you don't need to save it as a file: forward the email to your receipt address instead (see Forwarding receipts by email).

A receipt was linked to the wrong payment

Open Expenses → Receipts, use Unlink on the receipt's row, and link it to the right expense yourself with Link to expense. Unlinking takes the file off the expense it was on, and Arvello won't match that receipt automatically again. An automatic match only ever links the receipt; it books nothing.

I attached the wrong file

Open the expense, remove the attachment with the Remove button next to its preview, and upload the right one. Nothing else about the expense changes.