Scan a receipt on your phone with Chit

Chit reads a shopping receipt from a photo, line by line, on your phone. Nothing is uploaded to read it, it works offline, and it’s free. A long supermarket receipt should take a photo and a quick check, not ten minutes of typing.

Live guidance while you frame the receipt

While the camera is open, Chit looks for the receipt in the picture and gives you one specific instruction at a time, starting with whatever matters most:

• get the whole receipt in the frame;
• hold still, so the text is sharp;
• too dark, or too much glare, so change the angle or the light;
• move closer, if the text is too small to read reliably.

When everything has been right for a moment, Chit takes the photo itself, so you can keep both hands on the receipt. You can also import photos from your gallery; choose several and they’re treated as one long receipt.

After the photo, Chit finds the edges of the paper, straightens it, and reads only the receipt, ignoring text on the table, a can or a screen nearby.

Scan a long receipt in overlapping sections

A big supermarket receipt often won’t fit in one photo at a readable size. In long receipt mode you take it in sections, from the top down, and Chit suggests this mode when the text would be too small.

• The bottom of the previous photo is shown faintly at the top of the screen, so you can line up the next section with a few lines of overlap.
• Each section is read as soon as it’s taken. Chit tells you how many lines overlap, asks you to go back a little if there’s no overlap, and tells you when it has reached the total.
• The photos aren’t stitched together. Lines that appear in two photos are matched and kept once, using whichever photo read them more clearly. Two identical items bought one after the other are still counted twice.

From receipt codes to readable lines

Receipts are written in shorthand. Chit turns each line into something you can check at a glance:

• Abbreviations: WHL MLK 4PT becomes whole milk, 4 pints. When you correct a name, Chit remembers it for that shop, so the same line reads properly next time.
• Discounts: loyalty prices, multibuy savings and other negative lines are attached to the product they apply to, so the discount follows that item when you split.
• Weighed and multiple items: a line like 0.452 kg @ £2.20/kg or 2 @ £0.85 is joined to its product.
• Cancelled items are cancelled out, and bag charges are marked as shared costs.
• Everything after the total, such as card details and transaction codes, isn’t counted as shopping. Card numbers are cut down to their last four digits.

Each line is outlined on the photo, so you can compare what was read with what’s printed. Lines Chit is unsure about are marked; when it’s confident, the screen stays clean.

The total check

Chit adds up the lines and compares them with the total printed on the receipt.

• If they match, you know nothing has been missed or counted twice.
• If they don’t, Chit shows the difference and points you to the lines most likely to be wrong.
• If a single price couldn’t be read, Chit can work it out from the total and marks it for you to confirm.
• If the printed total has been crossed out or is unreadable, Chit uses the card payment amount instead and tells you it has done so.

Crumpled or faded receipts

A flat receipt usually needs little or no correction. On a badly crumpled one the lines bend, and a price can end up next to the wrong product; Chit marks the lines it thinks are affected. If the results are poor:

1. flatten the receipt on a table and take the photo again;
2. use long receipt mode and get closer, so the text is larger;
3. if the edges were found wrongly, drag the four corners yourself and Chit reads that photo again;
4. edit any line by hand. For spending with no receipt at all, add it manually.

Related: once the lines are right, see how to split a receipt by item, or read what Chit is for the whole flow.