Two halves of the same record
A bank line tells you that four hundred and twelve left the account and went to a merchant with an unhelpful name. The receipt tells you what was actually bought, how much of it was tax, and whether it belongs to a client. Neither half is much use on its own at the point where you need to justify the spend.
Karchu keeps the two together. The receipt is read into fields, the statement line is already extracted, and the link between them is made automatically wherever the evidence supports it.
How the match is decided
Four signals carry most of the weight: the amount, the date, the merchant name after normalization, and the account the payment left from. Time proximity matters too, since a card receipt often settles a day or two after the purchase, and the further apart the two are the weaker the match.
When the combined evidence is strong the link is made and the confidence is displayed next to it. When it is borderline the receipt is offered as a suggestion for you to confirm. When nothing plausible exists, the receipt stays unmatched and shows up in the list of receipts waiting for a payment, which is often how you notice a charge that has not landed yet.
Reading the document itself
Receipts arrive as phone photographs, screenshots, emailed PDFs and printed scans. Karchu straightens and cleans the image before reading it, extracts the header fields, and pulls out line items where the layout allows.
Anything that cannot be read confidently is left empty and flagged for review. A total that the software was not sure about is worse than no total, because it looks like data.
Invoices and bills
The same pipeline handles vendor invoices, utility bills, SaaS invoices and contractor invoices, reading vendor, invoice number, invoice date, due date, subtotal, tax, total, currency, line items and payment status. This is deliberately not a full accounts payable system. The goal is to understand the document and connect it to the transaction that paid it.
Frequently asked questions
How does Karchu match a receipt to a transaction?
It compares the amount, the date, the merchant and the account, and weighs how close in time the two are. When the combination is strong enough the receipt is linked to the transaction and the confidence is shown, for example matched with ninety seven percent confidence.
What if the match is wrong?
Every match is visible and reversible. You can unlink a receipt, pick the correct transaction yourself, or leave it unmatched. Karchu never hides a link behind the scenes.
What does it read off a receipt?
Merchant, date, subtotal, tax, tip, total, currency, payment method and the individual line items where they are legible, plus a category. Photographs and screenshots are supported as well as PDFs.
Does it handle invoices and bills too?
Yes. Vendor invoices, utility bills, SaaS invoices and contractor invoices are read for vendor, invoice number, invoice date, due date, subtotal, tax, total, currency, line items and payment status, and the same matching logic connects them to the payment when it appears.
What happens when a receipt cannot be read?
Fields that are not legible are left empty and marked for review rather than filled with a guess. Karchu would rather show you a gap than invent a total.