Receipt processing with AI Builder: capture expenses faster

Introduction: The Business Case for Automated Receipt Processing

If you’ve ever managed expense reports for your company, you know that manual receipt processing is not just tedious—it can slow down your whole operation. Many organizations in the U.S., especially those handling a high volume of expenses, still rely on employees to gather, sort, and manually enter receipt details into accounting software. This approach takes up valuable time and, let’s be honest, it’s easy for mistakes to slip through. Those errors can delay reimbursements, create compliance headaches, and add unnecessary work for everyone involved. That’s why more businesses are turning to automated receipt processing. It’s worth considering how artificial intelligence can speed up expense workflows, boost accuracy, and free up your team to focus on more important tasks. Plus, having reliable digital records makes audit season a lot less stressful and helps keep your company in line with the rules.

In addition, it’s important to know that automated receipt processing can help meet regulatory requirements here in the U.S. For instance, the IRS expects businesses to have proper documentation for expenses, and that means keeping receipts organized and accessible. With automation, receipts are consistently captured, categorized, and stored, which reduces the risk of missing information or non-compliance penalties. And when an audit comes around—whether internal or external—digitized receipts are much easier to retrieve, making the whole process more transparent and accountable.

What is AI Builder Receipt Processing?

Core capabilities and technology overview

Microsoft AI Builder is a powerful low-code platform that brings artificial intelligence to business process automation within the Microsoft Power Platform. When it comes to receipt processing, AI Builder combines advanced machine learning with Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to pull out the important details from scanned or photographed receipts, such as:

• Merchant names
• Transaction dates
• Item descriptions
• Amounts
• Taxes
• Payment methods

AI Builder isn’t limited to just one type of receipt. It can handle a variety of formats and layouts, read both printed and handwritten text, and even adjust to different languages or currencies if needed. Out of the box, it’s already trained with a large dataset of receipts, so it delivers impressive accuracy from day one. If your organization has unique needs, you can provide feedback or retrain the model to better recognize your specific documents.

AI Builder is built on Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure, so it’s designed to scale and stay secure no matter how many receipts you process. Whether you’re a small business or a large company with teams across the country, this solution can keep up. Microsoft regularly updates the pre-trained models to account for new receipt designs and vendor templates, which is especially useful as businesses and expense documentation keep evolving. If your company has international operations or deals with receipts in multiple languages, AI Builder’s flexibility makes it a practical choice.

Integration with Power Platform ecosystem

Embracing the Power Platform ecosystem for your automated workflows could be the game-changer your business needs. As a power platform consultant, I can ensure smooth integration tailored to your unique process requirements. With our power platform consulting services, your team can leverage the capabilities of Power Apps and Power Automate to build custom solutions, optimize receipt processing, and enhance overall efficiency.

One of the standout features of AI Builder is how smoothly it works with Power Apps and Power Automate. This lets you build custom applications and workflows tailored to your receipt management process. For example, you can create a mobile app in Power Apps that allows employees to snap a picture of a receipt wherever they are. This image is then processed by AI Builder and the extracted data is displayed for the user to check or correct if needed. With Power Automate, you can set up flows that trigger every time a receipt is submitted, automatically send it through AI Builder for processing, and route the results to Microsoft Dataverse, SharePoint, or even your favorite third-party accounting software. The best part? You don’t need to be a coding expert to set this up—both technical and non-technical users can put together robust solutions.

For example, your finance team can roll out a Power Apps mobile app for travelers to capture receipts instantly. The images are sent through a Power Automate flow, processed by AI Builder, and the data goes straight into a SharePoint list or Dataverse table. From there, it can link up automatically with expense reports, purchase orders, or reimbursement requests, cutting out a lot of manual steps. If you use Microsoft Teams or Outlook for communication, you can even set up notifications and approvals within those tools, so everything stays connected and simple to use.

Key Features and Benefits

OCR accuracy and data extraction capabilities

AI Builder’s OCR engine is at the heart of its receipt processing. It can accurately pull text from all kinds of receipt images, even when the background is busy, the ink is faded, or the layout isn’t standard. It looks for the details that matter most: total amounts, taxes, merchant names, dates, and individual purchases. The engine is tuned for receipts from major U.S. retailers, restaurants, and service providers, making it a great fit for American organizations. Microsoft keeps the model updated, and you can further train it with your own examples if you have special requirements or deal with unusual document types.

For example, if your business often receives receipts from a local supplier with a unique format, you can upload a set of those receipts to help AI Builder learn their structure. The system’s ability to read both printed and handwritten notes is a real advantage for companies that get a mix of paper and digital receipts—think of anything from taxi stubs to handwritten meal receipts from small eateries.

Automated categorization and workflow integration

AI Builder isn’t just about reading receipts—it can also help sort expenses automatically based on the details it extracts. For instance, it can categorize a lunch receipt as a “meals” expense or a purchase from an office supply store as “office supplies,” all by looking at the merchant or line items. Thanks to Power Automate, organizations can create workflows that check the data, flag anything unusual, and send expenses for approval according to your own business rules.

Examples of workflow automation include:

• Flagging receipts over a certain dollar amount for manager review
• Routing receipts from specific vendors directly to certain projects or departments

These features are especially helpful for companies that have to stick to strict controls or meet standards like Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX).

Cost savings and efficiency improvements

Automating the receipt process means less time and money spent on manual data entry and checking. Companies see:

• Faster expense submissions and approvals
• Fewer errors
• Reduced administrative load

All of this adds up to real cost savings by reducing labor costs and cutting down on duplicate or even fraudulent claims. Plus, better data quality means your financial reports are more accurate, which helps with regulatory compliance.

When you remove manual entry, you also reduce the risk of common mistakes, like typing the wrong number or missing a line item. These errors can have ripple effects on your tax filings or budget forecasts. For a big retailer processing thousands of receipts each month, automation can mean significant savings and fewer headaches for the finance team, allowing them to focus on more strategic work.

How to Implement Receipt Processing with AI Builder

Step-by-step setup guide

Getting started with AI Builder for receipt processing is straightforward, especially if you already use Microsoft Power Platform. Here’s how a typical setup might look:

• Create a Canvas or Model-driven app in Power Apps so users can capture receipt images, whether from a mobile device or a desktop camera.
• Add the AI Builder receipt processing component to your app, which lets users upload or snap photos of receipts right from the app.
• Connect your app to Microsoft Dataverse or SharePoint, so both the images and the extracted data are stored securely and ready for review or integration.

You can tailor this setup to fit your organization’s needs. For example, a consulting firm with a lot of travel might prefer a mobile-first app, while a corporate finance team may want a desktop interface that works with their existing expense management tools. Power Apps gives you the flexibility to add custom screens, prompts, and error handling so the process matches your internal policies.

Power Automate flow configuration

Once your receipt capture app is ready, Power Automate lets you build workflows to handle each step. A typical flow might look like this:

• The flow is triggered when a receipt image is submitted, either from Power Apps or a monitored folder.
• The image goes to AI Builder for OCR and data extraction.
• The extracted data is validated and checked against your business rules—maybe making sure all required fields are present or that categories match company policy.
• The data is then sent to the right system, whether that’s Dataverse, SharePoint, or your accounting platform.
• Users or managers get notified if any receipts need their attention or approval.

You can go further, too. For example, you might add rules that escalate exceptions to compliance officers or send notifications through Microsoft Teams. If you’re in a regulated industry, adding extra approval steps or keeping audit logs can help you stay compliant and maintain a clear trail of who did what and when.

Integration with business systems

AI Builder’s receipt processing doesn’t have to work in isolation. With Power Automate connectors, you can sync data with your ERP system, expense management platform, or even custom databases. The solution is designed for secure data transfer and can be set up to match your company’s privacy and retention requirements.

For instance, connecting to SAP, Oracle, or QuickBooks allows for seamless expense data transfer—no more manual uploads or reconciling spreadsheets. You can also use Microsoft Dataverse as a secure data hub, where you control who can see or edit information, and set retention schedules to meet specific regulations, like HIPAA or GLBA if you’re in healthcare or financial services.

AI Builder vs. Competition: Comparative Analysis

Feature comparison with major competitors

Below is a comparison of AI Builder and other popular receipt processing solutions:

AI Builder stands out for its deep integration with the Microsoft ecosystem and its low-code, customizable approach. Unlike some standalone solutions, AI Builder lets you build workflows that fit your unique needs, tap into your internal data sources, and create custom applications—without needing a full development team.

Microsoft ecosystem advantages

If your company already uses Microsoft 365, Power Platform, or Azure, you’ll appreciate how AI Builder fits right in. You get:

• Native compatibility
• Single sign-on
• Data governance using Microsoft’s compliance framework

Microsoft holds a wide range of important certifications—like SOC 1, SOC 2, ISO 27001, and FedRAMP—which can really matter if you’re in a regulated industry like healthcare, government, or finance. Using your existing Microsoft licensing and user management tools also simplifies administration, so IT teams can manage access, monitor activity, and enforce security policies more efficiently.

Best Practices and Advanced Configuration

Optimization tips for accuracy improvement

To get the best results from AI Builder’s OCR:

• Ensure receipt images are clear, well-lit, and show the full document.
• Train the AI Builder model with a sample of your company’s typical receipts.
• Review results regularly and provide feedback to help the system adapt to new vendors or changes in receipt formats.

Set up basic guidelines for employees who capture receipts, such as avoiding shadows, using high-resolution cameras, and double-checking that the entire receipt is visible. Periodic audits on extracted data can help catch recurring issues, so you can retrain the model or tweak your business rules as needed.

Security and compliance considerations

Processing receipts often means handling sensitive financial and personal information. AI Builder follows Microsoft’s strict security standards, including:

• Encryption for data at rest and in transit
• Compliance with major U.S. regulations

Set clear data retention policies, limit access to authorized staff, and monitor for unusual activity. Integrating with tools like Microsoft Purview can give you extra oversight and help with reporting.

If you operate under rules like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), make sure your receipt workflows allow users to access or delete their own data if needed. Microsoft’s compliance resources and audit logs can make it easier to prove your processes meet these requirements during reviews or audits.

Scaling strategies for enterprise deployment

For organizations processing large volumes of receipts:

• Use Power Automate’s batch processing to handle bulk data efficiently.
• Standardize app and flow templates across departments or subsidiaries for consistency and easier scaling.
• Monitor solution performance and adjust AI Builder’s capacity during busy times.

For larger enterprises, Azure’s monitoring tools can help you track system throughput, spot bottlenecks, and plan for future needs. If you have teams spread across different regions, deploying localized instances of the solution can help meet data residency rules and keep performance strong for everyone.

ROI Analysis and Case Studies

Cost-benefit calculations

Switching to AI-powered receipt processing can lead to major cost reductions by cutting down on manual entry and validation hours. Companies often see:

• Faster reimbursement cycles
• Happier employees
• Fewer errors

When you compare the time and resources needed before and after automation, the return on investment is easy to see.

For example, a business that processes 10,000 receipts every month could save hundreds of labor hours each year, adding up to significant payroll savings. Faster turnaround for reimbursements also helps boost employee morale and retention. With fewer mistakes, you’re less likely to run into audit issues or compliance penalties, strengthening the business case for automation.

Real-world implementation examples

• A mid-sized consulting company rolled out a Power Apps solution for mobile receipt capture, integrated with AI Builder and Power Automate, and cut their expense report processing time in half.
• Another business used AI Builder’s customization features to better handle industry-specific receipt formats, which improved accuracy and allowed them to automate expense approvals.
• In the public sector, a city government used AI Builder to digitize and process receipts tied to grant disbursements, boosting transparency and keeping up with federal reporting requirements.
• In healthcare, a provider integrated AI Builder with their electronic health record (EHR) system to manage staff expenses, helping them stay compliant with HIPAA and internal audit standards.

Getting Started with AI Builder Receipt Processing

If you’re considering automating your receipt process, start by taking a close look at your current expense management workflows and pinpoint where manual entry is causing issues. With Microsoft Power Platform and AI Builder, you can quickly prototype a solution using pre-built models and connectors—no need to reinvent the wheel. Your IT team or a trusted Microsoft partner can help with setup and integration, making sure your solution meets security, compliance, and scalability needs.

If you’re new to Power Platform, don’t worry—Microsoft offers plenty of documentation, training, and community support to help you get up to speed. Working with a certified partner can also be a smart move if you have unique regulatory or technical requirements. Starting with a pilot project and gradually expanding to other teams or processes lets you see early results and build momentum for bigger changes across your business.

Frequently Asked Questions

What types of receipts can AI Builder process?

AI Builder can process a wide variety of receipt formats, including both printed and handwritten receipts, and supports different layouts, languages, and currencies.

How does AI Builder integrate with existing accounting systems?

Through Power Automate connectors, AI Builder can send extracted data directly to systems like Microsoft Dataverse, SharePoint, SAP, Oracle, QuickBooks, and more, ensuring seamless integration with your current workflows.

Is AI Builder secure and compliant with U.S. regulations?

Yes, AI Builder follows Microsoft’s strict security standards, including encryption and compliance with regulations such as SOC 1, SOC 2, ISO 27001, FedRAMP, HIPAA, and GLBA.

How can I improve the accuracy of receipt processing with AI Builder?

Ensure receipt images are clear, well-lit, and complete. Regularly review extraction results, provide feedback, and retrain the model with your company’s typical receipts for best results.

What are the main advantages of AI Builder over standalone receipt processing solutions?

AI Builder offers deep integration with the Microsoft ecosystem, low-code customization, scalability, and robust security and compliance features, making it especially valuable for organizations already using Microsoft 365, Power Platform, or Azure.