An outsourced bookkeeping firm chased sixty clients for receipts every month-end. We built a WhatsApp pipeline where clients snap photos, OCR extracts vendor, amount, and VAT, entries post straight to the accounting software — and 97% of receipts now arrive before close.
Typical results
15 sec
Photo to posted entry
60
Clients on the pipeline
90%
Less time chasing documents
Figures reflect typical results for this kind of automation.
The challenge
Receipts arrived as crumpled paper, email attachments, and photos scattered across personal chats — mostly after the books were supposed to be closed. Bookkeepers spent around 50 minutes per client every month calling and texting for missing documents, only 61% of receipts arrived before close, and VAT filings regularly waited on stragglers.
Before and after
Receipts in before close
+59%Chasing time per client monthly
−90%The automation
We gave every client a dedicated WhatsApp Business thread and built the pipeline behind it in Make. Each photographed receipt runs through OCR that extracts vendor, date, amount, and VAT; clean entries post automatically to the accounting software, coded to the right client and category, with the source image attached. Blurry or unusual items route to a bookkeeper for review, and before month-end each client receives an automatic nudge listing which documents are still missing.
How it works
- 01
Snap and send
Clients photograph receipts and invoices straight into their dedicated WhatsApp thread, the moment they get them.
- 02
OCR extracts the details
Vendor, date, amount, and VAT are pulled from each image automatically, and the receipt is filed to the client's folder.
- 03
Entries posted
Clean extractions post directly to the accounting software, coded to the right client and expense category.
- 04
Exceptions flagged
Blurry photos or unusual amounts route to a bookkeeper for a quick review instead of becoming silent errors.
- 05
Smart nudges
Ahead of month-end, each client automatically gets a short list of what's still missing — and only what's missing.
Starts from
- Receipt photos
- Client WhatsApp threads
Delivers
- Accounting software
- Missing-document nudges
- Posted, coded entries
The impact
Receipt collection before close jumped from 61% to 97% across all sixty clients. A posted, categorized entry now takes 15 seconds from photo to ledger, chasing time fell from 50 minutes per client to 5, and VAT filings stopped waiting on missing paperwork.
Questions about this automation
How do clients send their receipts?
Each client gets a dedicated WhatsApp thread with the bookkeeping firm. They photograph receipts and invoices and send them there as soon as they have them, or forward PDFs. No app or login is needed, and every image is saved to that client's folder together with the extracted details.
What gets extracted, and where does it go?
OCR reads the vendor, date, amount and VAT from each image. Clean extractions post directly to the accounting software, coded to the right client and expense category with the source image attached. Blurry photos, duplicates or unusual amounts go to a bookkeeper for a quick review instead of posting automatically.
How does the month-end reminder work?
A few days before close, a scheduled job compares what each client has sent with what is expected, such as recurring bills and card statements, and sends a short WhatsApp list of what is still missing. It is a multi-step build with OCR and exception handling, usually rolled out in stages.