Ask your receipts vs a spreadsheet: ask how much you spent
A spreadsheet is a grid you fill. Asking your receipts is a question you already wanted to type: “How much did I spend at Checkers this month?” The difference is not a prettier chart. It is whether the total still opens the original till slip. That is the product behind AI Insights.
What spreadsheets are good at
Excel or Google Sheets are honest tools. You can sum a column, pivot by month, and share a file with an accountant. If you enjoy typing merchant names, they will never go out of fashion. The failure mode is the same every year: the grid is only as good as the last evening you had the energy to copy totals from fading paper. Miss a week of Checkers trips and the “budget” is fiction.
Bank CSV imports look like automation. They are not receipt archives. A single SuperSpar or “POS PURCHASE” line does not tell you VAT, line items, or which bag of dog food blew the grocery number. You cannot tap the bank row and see the slip. For South African till-slip VAT fields, see what to capture.
What “ask your receipts” means
Ask-your-receipts starts after capture. You scan with the camera, pick a gallery photo, or upload a PDF. Merchant, date, VAT, line items, and total are stored with the image. Then you ask how much you spent, in your own words. The system has to pick a date range, a merchant or category, and the receipts that belong — then show the work.
Examples that match how people actually talk:
- How much did I spend at Checkers this month?
- Show grocery spending by month.
- What did dining cost this month versus last month?
- Which categories took the most money this year?
If the answer cannot open the source slips, it is a chatbot paraphrasing a spreadsheet. AI Insights is built to keep that drill-down. We do not claim the model never mis-hears a category name; you can see which receipts were used and correct the underlying extract.
Why the original slip is the point
A number without proof is an argument. A number with the Food Lover’s Market image attached is a record. Returns, warranties, and (if it ever matters) SARS supporting documents all need the picture, not a cell in row 482. Spreadsheets throw the picture away at the first copy-paste. Scanning and then asking keeps both layers: the query for speed, the image for evidence. Try the question on your own slips, not a marketing table.
Example questions (try these after you scan)
- How much did I spend at Checkers this month?
- What did I pay at Checkers this year?
- How much did I spend at Pick n Pay this month?
- How much did I spend on groceries last month?
- How much on dining last month?
- How much did I spend at Amazon in the last 90 days?
- How much did I spend this month?
These are product examples, not quotes from testers. Empty archive → empty answers. Try them in Ask your receipts anything.
Expense tracker chat
AI Insights is expense-tracker chat against your own slips. Free includes 5 chats with 10 messages each; Basic removes the cap. See Pricing and the walkthrough on Ask how much you spent.
Compared with “expense report” software
Expensify-class tools exist to get a trip approved. Genius Scan exists to make a PDF. Smart Receipts exists to file and export. Those are real jobs; we named them on the 2026 comparison. Asking questions about your own receipts is a different job. You are not submitting to a finance team. You are trying to remember whether the last month of Pick n Pay was an outlier.
A spreadsheet can answer that if you typed everything. Asking in your own words is for the people who will not type everything, but will photograph a slip if the payoff is a later question. The app still lets you edit a wrong total. Automation that you cannot correct is worse than a slow grid.
A worked example: Checkers this month
Suppose you shop at Checkers twice a week. A spreadsheet version of the month is fourteen rows you might skip. A bank version is fourteen “CHECKERS” authorisations with no VAT split and no bananas-versus-batteries. The ask-your-receipts version is: scan each slip (or the emailed PDF), then type “How much did I spend at Checkers this month?” The report should list those slips. If one total looks high, open the image. If a slip was never scanned, the answer is incomplete — which is the truth, not a bug dressed as intelligence.
That is also why we lead with AI Insights on the homepage rather than OCR theatre. Plenty of apps photograph paper. The useful product is retrieval plus proof. Read the walkthrough on Ask your receipts anything, including the Checkers example prompt. If you only remember one habit: scan the slip while it is still black, then ask later.
A worked example: Pick n Pay this month
Same pattern as Checkers. Suppose you shop at Pick n Pay most weeks. A spreadsheet version is a pile of rows you might skip. A bank version is “PICK N PAY” authorisations with no VAT split. Scan each slip (or the emailed PDF), then ask “How much did I spend at Pick n Pay this month?” The report should list those slips. If one total looks high, open the image. If a slip was never scanned, the answer is incomplete — which is the truth.
Android, web, and the original slip
Capture is Android: camera, gallery, PDF. Review can be the same phone or the web portal with Google Sign-In. Encrypted cloud storage is how the image follows you. The app is on the public Play Store — install it from Google Play. Try real questions on real slips, and open the source image when a total looks wrong. That bug would miss the whole point of this article.
Limitations, said plainly
Asking in your own words will mis-parse a nickname you never used as a merchant. A category suggestion can be wrong. A crumpled slip can extract a bad total. None of that is a reason to go back to an empty grid; it is a reason to keep edit tools and the original photo. We also will not run a “vs Expensify” scorecard. Different jobs. If you need company approvals, use the company tool. If you need to ask your own till slips a question, that is the job this Android app is for.
A realistic workflow
- At the till or the same evening: capture the full slip (Android camera, gallery, or PDF).
- Glance at merchant, date, VAT, total. Fix obvious misses.
- Let categories land; change the ones that are wrong.
- When you are curious — Sunday night or month-end — ask the question on phone or the web portal (Google Sign-In).
- Open any total that looks wrong and read the image. That is the loop.
Pinning a useful insight on the dashboard is for questions you will ask again. It is not a substitute for scanning. Empty archive, empty answers.
What we will not say
We will not say this beats Expensify for companies, or Genius Scan for contracts, or that OCR is magically accurate on every crumpled thermal. Basic uses regional Play pricing — see Pricing. The honest line is: if the job is asking your own receipts a question, with the slip as proof, that is what the Android app is for.
South Africa-specific questions
Local merchants (Checkers, PnP, Woolworths, garages) are how people actually query spend. VAT on the slip is a field, not a vibe — capture it. Digital copies and SARS retention are a separate article: can you throw the paper away. Insights do not change those rules; they only help you find the file.
Spreadsheet or questions?
Keep a spreadsheet if you like typing and you already never miss a week. Use ask-your-receipts if the archive is photos-plus-fields and you want to ask how much you spent later. Either way, keep the original image. Ask your receipts anything for the product walkthrough.
Example questions
These are example questions you can try after you scan — not reviews.
Ask AI about my expenses — is that different from a spreadsheet?
A spreadsheet totals what you typed. Ask-your-receipts totals what you scanned and still opens the image. If you never miss a week of typing, keep the grid. If you will photograph a slip, ask later.
How much did I spend at Pick n Pay last month?
Scan the slips, then ask by merchant and month in AI Insights. Same pattern as Checkers.