Receipt Capture: OCR For Budgeting & Spend Insights

Hey guys! Today, we're diving deep into an exciting feature discussion: Receipt Capture & Spend Insights. This is where we explore how to use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to revolutionize your budgeting and spending analysis. Get ready to unlock some serious financial superpowers!

User Story: Scanning Receipts for Financial Clarity

Let's start with a common scenario. Imagine you're a shopper who wants a super easy way to track expenses. The goal? To scan or upload receipts – whether it's a photo or a PDF – and have the app magically extract all the important details, like totals and individual line items. This isn't just about data entry; it's about automatically updating your budget spending and, even better, providing cool insights such as your most-bought items and top spending categories. This way, you can really track and optimize your expenses like a pro.

Think about it: no more manually entering every single item you bought! This feature is designed to make expense tracking seamless and insightful, helping you stay on top of your finances with minimal effort. This is where the magic of OCR truly shines, transforming piles of receipts into actionable data. By automating the extraction process, we're giving you the power to understand your spending habits better and make informed financial decisions.

The beauty of this approach lies in its simplicity and the wealth of information it unlocks. Imagine effortlessly seeing where your money goes each month, identifying your spending patterns, and pinpointing areas where you can save. It's like having a personal financial advisor in your pocket, ready to provide insights at a moment's notice. And with features like identifying most-bought items and top categories, you'll gain a crystal-clear picture of your spending habits, empowering you to make smarter choices.

Scope: From Upload to Insights

Okay, so what exactly is covered in this feature? Let's break it down. We're talking about the ability to upload receipts in various formats, including images (JPG/PNG/WEBP) and PDFs. Once uploaded, the system will use OCR to extract the text. This can be done either locally using Tesseract.js or via server-side solutions like Google Cloud Vision or Azure OCR – we're exploring the best options to ensure accuracy and speed.

But it doesn't stop there. The extracted data needs to be parsed and normalized. This means identifying and organizing key details like the merchant, date, subtotal, tax, total amount, currency, and even the payment method if available. We'll also be parsing those tricky line items, capturing the name, quantity, unit price, and line total for each item on your receipt. This is where things get really powerful. We'll be working on categorizing those line items – think Dairy, Produce, Meat, Pantry – and even mapping them to a product catalog when possible. Imagine the level of detail you'll have at your fingertips!

Next up is persistence. All this valuable data needs a home, so we'll be storing it in MongoDB. And here's where it gets even cooler: we'll post updates to your budget ledger (categorized by month) and generate insights into your most-bought items and spending trends. This means real-time updates to your financial overview, giving you a clear picture of your spending habits.

We're also tackling some tricky scenarios. What happens with duplicates? What about partial or uncertain OCR results? We'll have a human review step to handle those cases, ensuring accuracy and completeness. And of course, privacy is paramount. We'll be implementing measures to redact sensitive information like card numbers and barcodes before storing images, with configurable options to suit your preferences.

To clarify, there are a few things that are out of scope for now. This includes invoice matching with bank feeds, loyalty program scraping, and returns/refunds reconciliation. These are great ideas for future enhancements, but for this initial phase, we're focusing on nailing the core receipt capture and insights functionality.

Acceptance Criteria: Ensuring a Smooth User Experience

Now, let's talk about how we'll know if we've nailed it. These are the Acceptance Criteria – the benchmarks we'll use to ensure the feature meets your expectations. They cover everything from uploading receipts to viewing your updated budget and insights.

Upload & OCR

First off, you should be able to upload JPG/PNG/WEBP images and PDFs (up to 10MB and 5 pages). We'll make sure you see a progress indicator while the OCR is running, so you know things are happening behind the scenes. And if OCR fails for some reason, you'll get a clear error message along with a retry option. No more guessing what went wrong!

Parsing & Normalization

The system needs to be smart enough to extract key information. We're talking about the merchant name, purchase date, subtotal, tax, total, and currency. Plus, we want to parse those line items with the name, quantity, unit price, and line total (where available). To ensure accuracy, we'll make sure the totals reconcile – the sum of line totals plus tax should roughly match the overall total (we'll allow for a small drift of around 2%).

Duplicates are a pain, so we'll detect them using a hash based on the merchant, date, and total (with a bit of tolerance). If we spot a potential duplicate, you'll get a warning before saving, giving you the chance to review.

Categorization & Mapping

Each line item needs to be categorized – Produce, Dairy, and so on. If we can't figure out a specific category, we'll default to Other. And the really cool part? We'll try to match line items to a known catalog product, allowing for even more detailed insights.

Review & Save

Before anything is saved, you'll have the chance to edit the details. This includes the merchant, date, totals, and individual line items. Once you hit Save, the data will be written to several places: the receipts collection (both raw and parsed data), the budget_ledger (categorized spending by month), and the insights (item buy counts and category totals).

Budget & Insights

This is where the magic happens! Your monthly budget view will update with the new spending per category, giving you a real-time view of your financial situation. And the Most Bought Items widget will update too, showing you your top purchases over a rolling window. Plus, you'll be able to filter insights by date range and merchant, allowing you to drill down into your spending habits.

Non-Functional Requirements

Of course, it's not just about features – it's about performance and reliability too. We're aiming for a P95 end-to-end time (from upload to parsing) of ≤ 8 seconds for a 1-page image and ≤ 12 seconds for a PDF when using server-side OCR. We'll also make sure images are stored securely behind auth, with signed/time-limited URLs. And if anything goes wrong, you'll see clear error messages with actionable steps, like retrying or editing.

Gherkin Scenarios: Real-World Examples

To really nail down the functionality, we've created some Gherkin scenarios. These are like mini-stories that describe how the feature should work in specific situations. Let's take a look:

Scenario: Upload a grocery receipt (image)
 Given I have a clear photo of a receipt
 When I upload the image
 Then OCR extracts merchant, date, totals, and line items
 And I can review and correct any fields
 And on Save, my budget and insights update

Scenario: Duplicate receipt warning
 Given I previously saved a receipt for $42.35 at "Metro" on 2025-10-28
 When I upload the same receipt
 Then I see a duplicate warning with options to view existing or save anyway

Scenario: Partial line items
 Given some items were not recognized
 When I open the review screen
 Then those lines are flagged as "Needs confirmation"
 And I can edit names/quantities before saving

Scenario: Insights refresh
 Given I have saved multiple receipts this month
 When I visit the dashboard
 Then "Most Bought Items" and "Category Spend" reflect the latest receipt

These scenarios help us visualize how the feature will be used in real-life situations and ensure we're covering all the bases.

In conclusion, this Receipt Capture & Spend Insights feature is poised to be a game-changer for budgeting and expense tracking. By leveraging OCR technology, we're making it easier than ever to understand your spending habits and make informed financial decisions. This isn't just about scanning receipts; it's about empowering you to take control of your finances with ease and clarity.