Business banking platform Tide is introducing a new expense management feature which enables users to upload an image of a receipt and automatically match the expense to a transaction made through a Tide account in real time.
Tide is using a machine learning model to match receipts to transactions, with accuracy improving with greater use.
The 'receipt importer' product is being rolled out for free to all 140,000 Tide members, following research revealing that SMEs spend 30% of their time on admin tasks that do not contribute to their bottomline, and that 54% store and manage physical receipts to hand over to their accountants.
Ali Travis, VP of business services at Tide says: “UK businesses are required by HMRC to keep detailed financial records of all business spending for up to five years. These records are crucial when filing VAT, corporation tax and self assessments. However, there is now no need to keep hard copies of receipts, and we have now made it as easy as possible for SMEs to go digital.
He says Tide intends to introduce new functionality later this year that will allow SMEs to keep track of their VAT liability within the app, and automatically filing their tax return to HMRC. The platform will also introduce controls on team cards and the ability to manage expenses on team cards.