How to Upload Receipts in QuickBooks: A Quick Guide for Home Builders

Introduction: Uploading receipts into QuickBooks can streamline your financial processes and reduce stress at month-end. In this quick guide, Jon Markee, your Builder CPA, walks through how to upload receipts into QuickBooks, along with tips to make the process smoother and more effective for home builders and their teams.

Use the Receipts Section in QuickBooks

QuickBooks makes it easy to upload receipts directly into your accounting system. From the dashboard:

• Navigate to the Transactions tab on the left-hand menu.

• You can access receipts either via Bank Feed or the dedicated Receipts section.

• Pro Tip: Bookmark the Receipts tab so it’s always one click away on your homepage.

Set Up Email Forwarding for Digital Receipts

If you frequently receive email receipts—for example, from online flight bookings—you can set up QuickBooks to accept forwarded emails.

• You’ll get a unique QuickBooks email address to forward receipts to.

• Important: Only registered users in your QuickBooks file can send receipts to this address. If someone like your office manager isn’t a registered user, their emails will be rejected.

• Consider adding trusted team members as users if they need to upload receipts.

Drag-and-Drop Uploads from Your Computer

For physical or scanned receipts, uploading them is simple:

• Use the drag-and-drop area within the Receipts section to upload multiple files at once.

• Alternatively, use the dropdown menu to upload from your computer or even Google Drive (though Jon recommends sticking to local files for reliability).

Match Receipts with Bank Transactions

Once receipts are uploaded, QuickBooks uses autofill features to:

• Analyze the receipt

• Match it with bank transactions based on the amount

• However, it doesn’t always get everything right—review the vendor, expense category, and product/service fields to ensure they’re accurate.

Manage Receipt Clutter

Sometimes, uploaded receipts may not match correctly or get stuck in the system.

• You can choose to ignore unmatched receipts, but over time this can create clutter.

• Jon recommends making it a month-end routine to review and delete any unnecessary or unmatched receipts.

Final Thoughts

Uploading receipts into QuickBooks is a small task that can bring big clarity to your financials—especially when you match receipts accurately and maintain clean records. By following Jon’s tips, builders can create a routine that keeps their books organized and their accountant happy.

For more bookkeeping tips and tutorials, follow Jon Markee, your Builder CPA. Let us know if you have questions, and we’re happy to help!