Frequently Asked Questions
Find answers to common questions about using SpendScan
Getting Started
What is SpendScan?
SpendScan is a smart receipt analysis tool that helps you track and understand your grocery spending and environmental impact. By uploading photos of your supermarket receipts, you can get detailed insights into your spending patterns, carbon foodprint, and make better financial and environmental decisions. Our AI-powered platform uses advanced computer vision and natural language processing to extract information from your receipts, automatically categorise items, and calculate the environmental impact of your food choices. This dual focus on both financial and environmental insights makes SpendScan unique among receipt tracking tools.
Do I need to create an account?
While you can try the receipt analysis feature without an account, you'll need to create one to save your receipts and access features like spending trends, environmental insights, reports, and personalised recommendations. Creating an account is free and takes just a few moments. Once you have an account, you can build up a history of your spending and environmental impact over time, which helps you see trends and make more informed decisions about your food shopping habits.
Can I use SpendScan on my phone?
Yes! SpendScan is fully responsive and works great on mobile browsers. You can even save it to your home screen as a Progressive Web App (PWA) for quick access.
Environmental Features
What is a Carbon Foodprint?
Your Carbon Foodprint is the total greenhouse gas emissions produced by your food purchases. We calculate this based on your actual grocery receipts, taking into account factors like food type, seasonality, and transportation distance. According to research from Our World in Data, food production accounts for approximately 26% of global greenhouse gas emissions. By tracking your carbon foodprint, you can understand how your food choices contribute to climate change and identify opportunities to reduce your impact. Different foods have vastly different environmental impacts—for example, beef and lamb have significantly higher emissions than plant-based foods, while seasonal and local produce typically has lower emissions than imported alternatives.
How accurate are the environmental impact calculations?
Our calculations use standardised emissions data from reputable sources like Our World in Data, research published in the journal Science by Poore & Nemecek, and IPCC Climate Change Reports. We consider factors such as food type, seasonality, transportation, and your location to provide accurate estimates for all users. It's important to note that carbon footprint calculations are estimates based on averages, as individual products may vary depending on specific production methods, transport routes, and packaging. We provide these figures as a helpful guide to understanding relative impacts rather than absolute measurements, helping you make more informed choices about your food purchases.
What are Seasonal and Local Scores?
The Seasonal Score shows how well you're buying produce in its natural growing season. The Local Score indicates what percentage of your groceries are sourced locally vs imported. Both scores help you make more environmentally conscious choices and often lead to fresher, tastier produce.
How can I improve my environmental impact?
SpendScan provides personalised recommendations based on your shopping habits. This includes suggestions for seasonal alternatives, local produce options, and lower-impact food choices to help you make more sustainable decisions.
Receipt Scanning & Analysis
How do I upload a receipt?
You can either take a photo directly through the app or upload an existing image of your receipt. The tool works best with clear, well-lit photos where all text is visible. We accept JPG, PNG, and PDF formats (including multi-page PDFs up to 10 pages for longer receipts). For the best results, take your photo in good lighting (natural light is ideal), hold your phone steady to avoid blur, and make sure the receipt is straight and fully visible in the frame. Our AI will automatically check the image quality and let you know if there are any issues that might affect the analysis.
What happens after I upload a receipt?
Our AI analyses the receipt, identifying items, prices, and automatically categorizing them. We also calculate the environmental impact of your purchases, including carbon footprint and seasonal/local scores. You'll see a confidence score for each item and can review and edit details if needed. Processing typically takes 30-60 seconds, during which our AI carefully validates that the numbers add up correctly and all essential information has been captured. Once processing is complete, you can review each item, make corrections if needed, and then save the receipt to your account. The receipt will then appear in your spending history and contribute to your overall analytics and environmental impact tracking.
How does the smart item recognition work?
The AI converts complex or abbreviated terms into simple, standardized names. For example, "Jim's Tasty Jumbo Cheesy Slices" would be simplified to "Cheese Slices", making it easier to track similar items across different stores and calculate their environmental impact.
Do I need to verify every item?
While you can verify each item for 100% accuracy, it's not required. You can choose to review only items with lower confidence scores or save the receipt as is if you're satisfied with the analysis.
Features & Functionality
What kind of insights can I get from SpendScan?
SpendScan provides various insights including monthly spend, environmental impact metrics, top spending categories, weekly spending breakdowns, and item-specific tracking. You can view trends over time for both financial and environmental metrics, and filter data to focus on specific categories or items. The Pro plan unlocks additional insights such as detailed category breakdown charts, item-level spending trends, and impact over time visualisations. These advanced analytics help you identify patterns you might not notice otherwise—for example, you might discover that you're spending more on snacks than you realised, or that your vegetable purchases increase during certain months. This information helps you make more informed decisions about your shopping habits.
Can I customize my environmental settings?
Yes, you can set your household size and location in Settings to get more accurate environmental impact calculations and personalise your impact dashboard.
Can I customize categories?
Yes, you can edit and customize categories in the Settings page to better match your needs. These changes will apply to both current and future receipt analyses.
What languages are supported?
SpendScan can process receipts in multiple languages and can display simplified item names in your preferred language, regardless of the original receipt language.
Data & Privacy
Is my receipt data secure?
Yes, we take security seriously. Your receipt data and environmental metrics are encrypted and stored securely. Only you (and any collaborators you explicitly add) can access your information. We use industry-standard encryption both in transit and at rest, meaning your data is protected when it's being transmitted to our servers and when it's stored. We never sell your personal information to third parties, and you have complete control over your data—you can export it or delete it entirely at any time. Your receipt images and extracted data are stored only for as long as you keep your account active.
Can I delete my receipt data?
Yes, you have full control over your data. You can delete individual items, receipts, or your entire account at any time.
How long is my data kept?
We retain your data as long as you maintain an active account. You can delete your data at any time through the settings page.
Still have questions?
Can't find the answer you're looking for? We're here to help. You can submit a feature request, report a bug, or ask a question through our feedback portal. We regularly review user feedback and use it to improve SpendScan and add new features that our users need.
For more detailed information about how SpendScan works, check out our How It Works page, or explore our articles and guides for tips on making the most of your grocery spending and reducing your environmental impact.