Take a photo of a supplier receipt, send it to Mucka, and it does the paperwork: it reads the receipt, drafts a bill in Xero with the photo attached, and shows you a card to check. You tap approve and it lands in Xero, ready to reconcile against your bank. Nothing posts until you say yes.
Heads up: filing a receipt into your books works once you've connected your accounts. There's no default expense account to set up first — Mucka picks the account per receipt from what it read, and you change it on the card if it guessed wrong. That half works with Xero, QuickBooks, FreeAgent and Sage, and the photo of the receipt goes across with it on all four.
If Mucka can't get the list of expense accounts out of your accounting app — usually a blip at their end — it says so and offers the job instead, rather than leaving you a card you can't approve.
You don't need any of that to get the cost on a job. Send Mucka the receipt whatever you're on, or on no accounting app at all, and it'll read the shop, the total and the VAT off it and ask which job it was for. See what the materials on a job came to.
Send the receipt
You can send a receipt two ways, and both end up in the same place:
- In the app — open the chat, tap the + button, and add a photo (or take one there and then).
- On WhatsApp — just send the photo to your Mucka number.
A snap of a printed till receipt or a supplier's PDF invoice both work. Mucka reads the supplier, the total, the VAT (if it's shown), and the date.
Check the card and approve
Mucka drafts the receipt and shows you a card to check. Where it appears depends on who sent it and how:
- You sent it in the Mucka chat — the card is right there under Mucka's reply. Tap Add to accounts or just say yes. If you've got more than one bank account in your accounting app, it goes to your Actions list instead, because that card is where you pick which account it was paid from.
- You sent it on WhatsApp — you finish it in WhatsApp (see below).
- Someone on your team who can't approve it sent it — it goes to the Actions list for whoever can.
The card shows what it read:
- Supplier, Total, VAT and Date — all editable, so if it misread a smudged total you just fix it before approving.
- How was this paid? — business card/bank, cash, own money (to reimburse), or on account. This is the important one: it decides how the receipt lands in Xero (see below).
- Expense account — which account in Xero it codes to. Mucka pre-picks the best match from what it read (fuel goes to your motor account, materials to materials, and so on), so most receipts are one tap. If it guessed wrong, just change it on the card — the account depends on what you bought, so this is yours to confirm each time.
- Paid from (card/cash only) — which bank account the money came out of (e.g. Revolut). Mucka records the spend against that account so it matches your bank feed.
If the photo was hard to read, the card says so — give the figures a second look before you approve.
Tap Add to accounts and Mucka posts it to Xero with the receipt photo attached. Tap Dismiss and nothing happens — the receipt just sits there, and you can send it again later.
On WhatsApp you finish the whole thing in the chat. Mucka leads with its best guess — "I've put this under Subsistence. Add it to Xero?" — and three buttons: Approve, Change account, and Dismiss. Tap Approve and it posts; tap Change account to pick a different one from a tappable list (most likely first); tap Dismiss and it's dropped. You can also just tell it in words — reply "log it as materials" or "that's entertainment" and Mucka re-codes it and shows the updated card. For a card/cash receipt it also asks which bank account it was paid from if that's not obvious. Nothing posts until you tap.
When Mucka can't tell which account
You pick the account on each receipt's card, so there's nothing to set up first. Mucka suggests one from what was bought, and when it can't tell (an odd purchase that doesn't match any of your accounts) the card asks you to pick before you approve. You can always recode a bill in Xero afterwards too.
What lands in Xero
It depends how you paid — Mucka records it the way that reconciles cleanly:
- Paid on card/bank (or cash) — Mucka records the spend against the bank account you chose, coded and with the receipt attached. When the matching payment lands on your bank feed, Xero offers it as a match — you just confirm, and the receipt's already on it. That's the receipt-to-transaction match, done for you bar one tap.
- On account / not paid yet — Mucka posts a bill awaiting payment, with the receipt attached, ready to pay and reconcile later.
Either way, Mucka doesn't touch your bank feed or force the match — it creates exactly the record Xero then matches, so there's nothing left to type. The final confirm stays yours, in Xero.
If something goes wrong
- "Reconnect Xero" — receipt capture needs two permissions that were added after you first connected (attaching the photo, and posting to your bank feed). Tap Connect Xero again on the panel to grant them (one time only).
- "Pick which bank account this was paid from" — you've got more than one bank account in Xero, so Mucka needs to know which one a card or cash receipt came out of. Choose it on the card, then approve again. If you've no bank account set up in Xero at all, Mucka doesn't get stuck: it records the receipt as a bill with the photo attached, ready to reconcile later.
- "Choose an expense account" — pick one on the card, then approve again.
- "QuickBooks only lets CIS accounts be used for suppliers registered for CIS" — QuickBooks keeps its CIS accounts ("CIS supplies and materials" and the CIS cost ones) for subcontractors set up for CIS, and a supplier's receipt isn't one. Mucka doesn't offer those accounts for receipts, so pick a different expense account on the card and approve again.
- "Mucka couldn't find or add the supplier": a bill that's not paid yet (on account) has to name a supplier, and your accounting app wouldn't take the one on the receipt. In QuickBooks, Mucka finds a supplier you've marked inactive and switches it back on, and if the name already belongs to one of your customers it adds the supplier as "(Supplier)". If it still can't, the message says what your accounting app said: check the supplier name on the card and approve again.
- "That doesn't look like a receipt" — Mucka only logs genuine purchase receipts and supplier invoices, not job photos. If it is a receipt, send a clearer, well-lit photo of the whole thing.