How to stop chasing client receipts: a system for bookkeepers

Every bookkeeper has sent the email: “Hi, just following up on the receipts for March.” Then sent it again. Chasing feels like a client problem, but it is a process problem, and more reminders do not fix a process. Clients fail to send documents for predictable reasons, and each reason has a specific fix. This guide sets out those fixes as a system: how documents get captured, how you ask for what is missing, when you stop waiting, and what you do with the gaps that remain. Survey figures and tax authority positions are linked in the Sources section.

How big the problem is

The Institute of Certified NZ Bookkeepers surveys bookkeepers each year, and one question asks what most often stops them lodging returns by the due date. In 2022 the leading answer was clients not providing timely information. In 2023, with 145 responses, the leading answer changed to incomplete or incorrect information provided by clients ^[1] . The wording moved; the cause did not. In both years the biggest obstacle to finishing the work was not the work. It was getting what was needed from the client.

Why clients do not send receipts

Four reasons cover almost every case, and none of them is laziness.

1. Friction. The route you gave them takes more than a few seconds, or needs a login they have forgotten.
2. Timing. They are asked weeks after the purchase, when the receipt is in a van, a jacket, or the bin.
3. Vagueness. “Send me your receipts” does not tell them which ones you are missing, so they have to audit their own spending to answer you.
4. No consequence. Nothing happens when they are late. You wait, then you estimate, then the return is filed anyway.

A system that works removes all four.

Step 1: capture at the point of purchase

A receipt is easiest to capture in the minute after it is handed over. Every day after that the odds fall. So the first fix is a capture route the client will use while standing at the till or opening the supplier’s email.

Three routes cover most documents:

• Phone photo for paper receipts.
• Email forwarding for bills that arrive as PDFs. This suits owners who live in their inbox, and it can be automated with a forwarding rule on the accounts mailbox.
• Supplier portals for bills that are never emailed (utilities, telecoms, fuel cards). Get your own login at onboarding so these never depend on the client.

Choose one route per document type per client and remove the others. “Email them, or WhatsApp them, or drop them in the folder” guarantees documents in three places and no way to know what is complete.

Step 2: ask for exactly what is missing

Stop asking for “the receipts”. Work from the bank and card feeds: list every payment in the period that has no bill or receipt behind it, and send that list.

A request the client can act on has four things per line: date, amount, payee as it appears on the statement, and which card or account.

Hi Sam, three documents are missing for March. Could you forward them by Thursday?

1. 12 March, 84.50, SCREWFIX DIRECT, card ending 4417
2. 19 March, 1,250.00, payment to J HOLLIS, current account
3. 27 March, 39.99, ADOBE, card ending 4417

If you do not have number 2 as an invoice, tell me what it was for and I will work out what we need.

Send one list per period, on a fixed day, not a message per item. Clients learn to expect it and deal with it in one sitting.

Step 3: set a cut-off and keep to it

Without a cut-off, the close waits for the slowest document. Set two dates and tell the client both at onboarding:

• Document date: documents for the month are due by, say, the 3rd working day.
• Cut-off date: anything not received by, say, the 6th working day is handled without the document, as described in Step 5.

The dates are yours to choose. What matters is that the close has a point at which waiting stops. The full timetable is in the month-end close process.

Step 4: escalate on a fixed ladder

Decide in advance what happens at each stage so that escalation is routine and not personal.

Most clients never get past the second row once the list is specific. The fourth row matters most: three late periods mean the route is wrong for that client, and the fix is a different route, not a sharper reminder.

Step 5: deal with what never arrives

Some documents will never turn up. The books still have to reconcile, so the transaction is recorded from the bank statement either way. The question is how.

• Code it conservatively and flag it. Use the most likely expense account, mark that no document is held, and keep a running list per client.
• Do not reclaim VAT or GST without the evidence the rules require. Input tax recovery generally depends on holding a valid tax invoice. The requirements differ by country and by invoice value; see the record-keeping guides for the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Singapore.
• Try for a duplicate. Suppliers reissue invoices; online accounts keep order histories; banks reissue statements.
• Know the position on estimates. HMRC’s guidance for the UK is to get copies of as much as possible, and where figures still cannot be confirmed, to tell HMRC in the return’s “Any other information” box that the figures are provisional (to be confirmed later) or estimated (cannot be confirmed). Interest and penalties may follow if the figures turn out to be wrong and too little tax was paid ^[2] .
• Put the cost in front of the client. “The 14 missing receipts this quarter cost you 212 in VAT you could not reclaim” changes behaviour faster than any reminder.

Step 6: write it into the engagement

Everything above should be in the engagement letter before the first month: the capture route, the document date, the cut-off, what happens to items without documents, and that repeated late delivery is charged as extra work. Agreed in advance, the cut-off is a term the client accepted. Introduced mid-year, it is a complaint. See the client onboarding checklist.

Step 7: measure it

Track one number per client per month: the share of bank and card payments that had a document by the cut-off date. It tells you which clients need a different route, shows the client their own trend, and gives you evidence when you reprice. A client at 95% is a different engagement from a client at 60%, and should be priced as one; see pricing bookkeeping services.

Tools that help with capture

The ledger a client already uses is the natural place to start.

• Xero has built-in document capture: photograph a paper receipt in the Xero Accounting app, or forward a supplier’s bill to the organisation’s Xero email address, and the details are extracted ^[3] .
• ExpenseFlow gives each client file its own forwarding address, plus upload and Google Drive import. Documents are read line by line, coded, checked for duplicates, and held in a review queue; nothing syncs to Xero or QuickBooks Online until a person approves it.
• QuickBooks Online has receipt capture: snap a photo in the mobile app, upload from a computer or Google Drive, or email to a custom address. Senders must use the email address they sign in to QuickBooks with ^[4] .

Whichever you choose, the tool is Step 1 only. It makes sending easy. It does not write the missing-items list, set the cut-off, or have the conversation in row four of the ladder.

Where ExpenseFlow fits

ExpenseFlow is built for a bookkeeping firm handling documents for many client files. Each client gets a dedicated email address, so a forwarded bill lands in the right file without anyone sorting it. Clients and their staff can also upload files or pull them from Google Drive. Each document is read line by line, given an account and tax treatment, checked against existing documents for likely duplicates, and held in the firm’s review queue beside the original image. After approval it syncs to Xero or QuickBooks Online, and in Xero the image is attached to the transaction.

What that removes is the gap between a document existing and the bookkeeper having it. What it does not do: ExpenseFlow does not send reminders to your clients, read bank feeds, or build the missing-items list. Steps 2 to 7 remain a process you run.