Budget/money recording app for every single expense

[NurtureGrow]

Hello all,

I'd like to find a budget/money recording app for every single expense.

The best would be if we could scan shopping receipts and it would record i.e. £40 spent at Sainsbury's, but itemise and record i.e. 2 cans of chickpeas cost, 4 pints of milk cost etc. But also that we can manually enter council tax for each month and every other expense. At the end of the year, we will know how much we spent everything and on what.

It would also be great if it could produce graphs to reflect on the year. But the key requirement is I don't just want it to record £40 at Sainsbury's, but every item we bought.

Does anyone know an app that can do this?

Thanks so much!

From Google Gemini:

Most standard apps (like Snoop or Emma) only see "£40 at Sainsbury's" because that is the only data the bank sends them. To get "chickpeas: 55p," the app needs to physically read the receipt using OCR (Optical Character Recognition).
There are very few apps that do this and handle general bills like Council Tax well, but here are the best options for your specific request:

1. The Closest Match: Skwad

This is one of the few personal finance apps explicitly built to scan grocery receipts and extract line-item details.

• How it works: You scan your receipt, and it attempts to break down the total into individual items (e.g., separating "Beer" from "Bananas").
• Pros: It aims to do exactly what you asked for—splitting a supermarket trip into specific categories (Food vs. Household vs. Alcohol).
• Cons: OCR technology is never 100% perfect. You will likely still need to double-check the scans to ensure it hasn't read "Milk" as "Silk".

1. The "Power User" Combo: YNAB + "Receipts for YNAB" (iOS)

If you have an iPhone, this is currently the most powerful solution, though it involves two apps.

• The Budget App: YNAB (You Need A Budget) is the gold standard for tracking every penny and manual bills like Council Tax.
• The Scanner: A third-party app called "Receipts for YNAB" uses AI to scan your receipt, read the line items, and split them automatically before sending the data to your main budget.
• Note: YNAB is a paid subscription (and essentially a lifestyle change), but it offers the granular graphs and reporting you want.

1. The "Business" Workaround: Dext (formerly Receipt Bank)

This is actually designed for small businesses to track expenses, but some "super-trackers" use it for personal life because the scanning is incredibly accurate.

• How it works: It extracts line items with very high accuracy because it’s built for tax compliance.
• Pros: It will definitely record that you bought 2 cans of chickpeas.
• Cons: It is not designed for personal budgeting (it won't have "Council Tax" categories by default), so you would need to set it up creatively. It is also a paid service.

1. The "Manual but Free" Option: Excel / Google Sheets

If the apps above are too clunky or expensive, many Mumsnet users eventually revert to a simple spreadsheet.

• Method: You sit down once a week with your pile of receipts and type them in.
• Why it works: It is 100% free, you can make the graphs look exactly how you want, and the act of typing in "£3.50 for chocolate" often stops you from buying it next time!

My Recommendation: Start by trying Skwad. It is the only app currently trying to solve the "line-item" problem specifically for personal users rather than businesses. If that feels too glitchy, the manual spreadsheet method is the most reliable fallback.

I use Spendee doesn't record everything though.

Thanks very much.

I previously used Dext at work - it easily scanned receipts and saved costs.

It all seems quite complicated though.. I don't really enjoy these things..

Feel I may resort to manual typing and an excel, but this could take a lot of time

Scan the receipt as a PDF and then excel can copy from a PDF IIRC.

use the Data > Get Data > From File > From PDF feature to import tables directly

If you have an iPhone. Here’s a top tip.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DUzxwBJFPtc/?igsh=ODExZGw0MWUwdjlk

What's your objective in recording every item on a receipt?

I'm just asking because I've been using WPS lifestage for years (it was formerly Moneyhub) and it connects to all my accounts and cards, so I don't have to add anything manually. I just need to categorise each transaction, but itearns over time how to categorise you spend so there's less and less work to do.

You get a snapshot of your net worth (you can include pensions, property and mortgage), a snapshot by category, and you can view graphs of income and expenditure. If you want to go into detail you can download transactions into Excel and create pivot tables.
You can also add projects, as another layer of categorisation.

I find it extremely good!

Thank you all so much and @Jopo12 for this recommendation!

Also my apologies I missed your reply.

I really appreciate it and will look it up.

The objective is to monitor everything we are spending, to check we are not overspending and review at a later date to save costs etc.

I’ve been using YNAB (You need a budget) for the last 11 years and it’s fantastic. You can link all your cards to the app so all spending is recorded. I budget and log everything.

If you spend everything on card, you could download all transactions into a spreadsheet to analyse.

For groceries you could try the techniques mentioned above for extracting the data.

However it will be more proactive and effective to get into the habit of checking prices and looking for best value when you shop rather than reviewing later on.

So you automatically save the money rather than find out later that you didn't.

Not the receipt thing, but I find YNAB (you need a budget) the best app for budgeting that I’ve tried. It isn’t free (after the initial trial) but it has saved me more than it costs iyswim. You can create your own categories rather than having preset ones like some other apps; and it syncs to your bank. You allocate money at the start of the month so it’s kind of like putting money in different ‘envelopes’. It’s opened my eyes to where money was going and feel much more in control, it’s also helped me ‘put money away’ (virtually) for large annual things like insurance or a holiday or Christmas.