Lightyear or Receiptflow: Which One Do You Actually Need?
If you've landed on this page, you're probably comparing Lightyear and Receiptflow because they keep showing up in the same searches. Here's the thing worth knowing before you go any further: they're not really solving the same problem.
Lightyear automates accounts payable, the supplier invoices, purchase orders, and approval chains a practice or business processes on the way out. Receiptflow automates receipt capture, the client expenses and receipts a practice processes to keep the books clean. Knowing which of those is actually eating your team's time is the fastest way to work out which tool you need, if either.
What Is Receiptflow?
Receiptflow is receipt capture and bookkeeping automation built for UK accounting and bookkeeping practices. Clients snap a photo or forward a receipt by email, and Receiptflow extracts the data, codes it, and keeps the books clean without your team touching a keyboard.
It's built for independent and small multi-partner firms managing client expenses and receipts day to day, not for enterprise purchase order workflows. No feature bloat, no clutter, just the core job done well. The interface is clean and considered, onboarding takes minutes rather than weeks, and pricing is a flat monthly fee that doesn't creep up as you add clients.
Receiptflow is UK-built and MTD-ready, with HMRC compliance front of mind for every practice using it. Less admin. More accounting. It's free to try, no card required.
What Is Lightyear?
Lightyear is an accounts payable and purchasing automation platform aimed at SMEs and larger businesses with significant purchase invoice volume. It handles supplier bills, purchase orders, three way matching, and multi-level approval workflows, all built around processing invoices rather than client expense receipts.
It has a strong reputation in AP automation, with high user ratings for ease of use and support, and genuinely useful features like automated supplier statement reconciliation and fraud checks on bank details. Lightyear is designed for finance teams managing supplier relationships and purchasing at scale, which is a different job to the one most UK accounting and bookkeeping practices need solved for their clients.
Lightyear vs Receiptflow: Head to Head
Pricing and Transparency
Lightyear's UK pricing runs on a credit model. The Essentials plan starts at £130 a month for 125 credits, Standard is £179 a month for 250 credits, and Professional is custom priced for 500 or more credits. Each processed bill, statement, purchase order, or expense report consumes credits, so cost scales with document volume and integration add-ons carry an extra monthly fee.
Receiptflow uses a flat practice fee instead. Essential is £150 a month for up to 50 clients, Pro is £275 a month for up to 150 clients, and Growth is £500 a month for up to 300 clients. Cost is tied to client count, not document volume, so a busy month never triggers a surprise credit top up.
The practical difference matters. A practice with unpredictable receipt volume across many small clients can end up managing credit usage on Lightyear in a way that simply doesn't apply on Receiptflow's flat fee model.
> See how much your practice could save. Start your free Receiptflow trial.
Ease of Use and Onboarding
Lightyear users consistently rate onboarding and support highly, and the platform is genuinely easy to use for its purpose. But it's built around supplier and purchase order setup, which takes real configuration time for a practice that just wants client receipts processed.
Receiptflow's onboarding is built for speed. Clients don't need to download an app or learn a new system. They forward a receipt by email or snap it, and it's in the practice's workflow within minutes. There's nothing to configure on the client side.
Receipt Capture and Document Processing
Lightyear's data extraction is built for bills and purchase invoices, with line item detail and price verification against agreed supplier rates. It's a strong fit for that specific document type.
Receiptflow is purpose built for receipts. Extraction is fast and clean, with no manual correction cycle needed for the kind of everyday client expense documents most UK practices handle.
UK Specific Features
Both platforms operate in the UK market, but Receiptflow is built specifically around MTD and HMRC requirements for accounting and bookkeeping practices, with UK VAT handling as standard. Lightyear's UK-specific accounting features centre on AP workflows and don't extend into receipt-level bookkeeping compliance in the same way.
Integrations
Both tools integrate with Xero, and Lightyear extends further into Sage 200, Sage Intacct, and NetSuite for larger finance teams. Receiptflow covers Xero, QuickBooks, and Sage for the practice management stack most UK independent firms actually use, without the enterprise ERP layer.
Support Model
Lightyear's support is well regarded and included on every plan, built around larger finance teams and their AP processes. Receiptflow's support is sized for independent and small multi-partner practices, so you're not competing with enterprise accounts for attention.
Full Comparison
| Feature / Criteria | Receiptflow | Lightyear |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Flat practice fee | Credit based (scales with doc volume) |
| Starting price | £150/month | £130/month (125 credits) |
| Primary focus | Client receipt capture & bookkeeping automation | AP and purchase order automation |
| Ease of onboarding | Minutes (no client app needed) | Straightforward (built around suppliers) |
| MTD / HMRC ready | Yes | Not a core focus |
| Xero integration | Yes | Yes |
| QuickBooks integration | Yes | Not listed |
| Sage integration | Yes | Yes (Sage 200, Sage Intacct) |
| Client app required | No | No |
| UI/UX | Clean, modern | Well rated (built for AP teams) |
| Best for | UK receipt-heavy bookkeeping practices | Practices/businesses with high PO volume |
Who Should Choose Receiptflow
Receiptflow is the better fit if you're an independent or small multi-partner UK practice whose main admin burden is client receipts and expenses rather than supplier invoices. You want predictable software spend that doesn't grow every time you take on a new client, fast onboarding that doesn't require client training, and MTD compliance built in rather than bolted on.
Who Should Stick with Lightyear
If your practice or business processes a high volume of supplier purchase invoices and needs multi-level approval workflows, three way matching, or purchase order management, Lightyear is doing a job Receiptflow isn't built for. Businesses already running Lightyear for AP and looking for receipt capture on top of it may be better served adding a receipt tool alongside it rather than replacing it.
So Which One Do You Need?
Ask yourself what's actually taking up your team's time. If it's chasing client receipts, coding expenses, and keeping the books current, that's Receiptflow's job, and you'll get a flat fee, fast onboarding, and MTD-ready capture without paying for AP features you'll never touch. If it's supplier invoices, purchase orders, and multi-level approvals, that's Lightyear's job, and no amount of receipt scanning will solve it.
Many practices only need one of the two. Some, particularly those handling both supplier bills and client receipts at volume, may eventually want both, running side by side rather than as substitutes for each other.
Lightyear is rarely the only tool on the shortlist. If Dext is also in the mix, the Receiptflow and Dext comparison covers that pairing in the same detail, and our wider look at the best Dext alternative for UK practices puts both in context against the rest of the market.
> Ready to try Receiptflow? Start your free trial of Receiptflow, no card required.
