The Future of eReceipts

October 6, 2021

By Trent McLaren

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The future of e-receipts

Chasing business paper receipts is the latest heartache to bite the dust in the fast-moving world of digitalising those manual processes bookkeepers and accountants have laboured over for too long. 

I was super excited recently to be invited by Amy Holdsworth, CEO of Clarity Street, an innovative consulting practice helping accounting firms digitalise their service, to shed some light on this subject at her webinar. 

I spoke alongside one of the smartest blokes I know, Peter Tully, Head of Business Development at Slyp, another Australian trailblazing and world-first financial tech innovation, launching its digital, itemised, Slyp Smart eReceipts. 

It’s fair to say Weel and Slyp have a bit in common. Do I hear a collaboration coming on? Let’s just hold that thought, but in the meantime, here’s a little of what went down at Clarity Street’s webinar and how things are set to change for accountants and bookkeepers in the very near future.

The triad of banks, businesses and consumers now closer than ever

Slyp has built out a network of partners and banks to facilitate the flow of receipt data easily between the two. The Slyp Smart Receipt allows consumers to tap their card, or their phone and receive an interactive receipt in their bank feed which can be automatically exported to the accounting software with the right GST and connected to the original transaction. 

Yes, I can hear that sigh of relief from here. No more chasing receipts from your clients or checking the data on an OCR feed.

Slyp synchronizes with the Weel outlook in more ways than one, both making managing business spending more efficient with better technology. 

In the past you may have had a bank card and then an expense management software which don’t really talk to each other and become mismatched. The beauty of DiviWeelPay is it’s a one-stop-shop and handles everything from the transaction, to the data capture, to the reporting.

Innovation leads to more innovation

Weel partners with other financial tech firms like Xero, which has inspired integration improvements that come from learning from each other.

I can just see how Weel could be transformed yet again in a Slyp partnership, to automatically channel that digital receipt to appear against a Weel transaction which is then fed into the accounting software. 

That data transfer could be completely seamless and become instantly searchable and accessible. 

100% accuracy changes roles for accountants and bookkeepers sooner than you might think

There’s an evolution that Weel and Slyp are part of that is leading to 100% accuracy of the data, which needs no person in the middle to check that accuracy.

It started with manually tallying receipts, and then OCR meant accountants and bookkeepers could focus on just verifying the receipts, so GST is read correctly, and everything matches up. 

We can now look at that time spent validating the tech and shape a new future for the profession which uses that time differently. It’s exciting to think how this may change things.

That future has arrived, but like everything it takes time for people to adapt. Like Peter and Amy, I expect that within even 2-3 years this will be the new norm and we’ll get to see how bookkeepers and accountants have shifted their focus. 

Keen to improve your clients’ business efficiency? Try Weel today with our free 14-day trial.

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