This Receiptflow setup guide walks through everything from account creation to processing your first client's first receipt, and the whole thing genuinely fits into an hour.
That's usually the real hesitation with a new tool, not whether it works, but whether setting it up will eat an afternoon you don't have. If you're weighing up switching a client onto Receiptflow, or trying it for the first time before rolling it out across the practice, this walks through exactly what that first hour looks like.
Before you start: what you'll need
You don't need anything unusual. Have your practice details to hand, a client you want to onboard first (ideally one with a manageable volume of receipts, not your busiest one), and login access to that client's accounting platform, whether that's Xero, QuickBooks or Sage.
You don't need IT support, a technical setup call, or a block of dedicated admin time. This is designed to be done by whoever runs client onboarding at your practice, without a developer in the room.
Step 1: Create your practice account (5 minutes)
Sign up with your practice email and set your practice name. You'll be asked a handful of basic questions, roughly how many clients you manage and which accounting platforms you use, so Receiptflow can tailor the dashboard to how your practice actually works rather than showing you a generic setup.
No credit card is needed to start a trial, and no client data is required at this stage. This step is entirely about your practice, not any individual client.
Step 2: Add your first client (10 minutes)
From your dashboard, add a new client with their business name and the accounting platform they run. Each client gets their own isolated workspace, so there's never a risk of one client's supplier list, VAT codes, or receipts mixing with another's, even as you scale up to dozens of clients later.
This is also where you set the client's review thresholds, for example, the value above which a transaction gets held for manual review before posting. The defaults work well for most clients, so you can leave these as they are and adjust later once you see real transaction volume.
Step 3: Connect their accounting platform (10 minutes)
Select the client's platform and authorise the connection. For Xero and QuickBooks, this is a direct OAuth login, the same kind of secure connection you'd use to log into any app with your Google or Microsoft account, and it typically takes under two minutes once you're through the login screen. For Sage, setup takes a little longer since Sage's import-based structure needs an initial column mapping step, but it's still a one-off task, not an ongoing burden.
Once connected, Receiptflow reads the client's existing chart of accounts, VAT codes, and supplier list automatically. You don't rebuild any of that by hand.
Step 4: Set up how the client submits receipts (10 minutes)
Decide how this client will get receipts to you, as part of a wider paperless receipt process if this is the client's first move away from physical paperwork. Receiptflow supports the mobile app and a dedicated forwarding email address, and most practices offer clients a choice rather than mandating one method. A sole trader who's always on the road might prefer the app. An office-based client with a scanner might prefer email forwarding.
Whichever methods you enable, send the client a short instruction, most practices use a one-line email or text message, since the submission process itself needs no explanation beyond "send us a photo of the receipt."
Step 5: Process your first receipt (15 minutes)
This is the step worth doing slowly the first time. Have the client (or you, on their behalf) submit one real receipt. Watch it come through: extraction, supplier matching, VAT detection, and nominal code suggestion.
Check that the supplier name, date, amount, and VAT rate all extracted correctly, and that the nominal code suggestion looks right against the client's existing categories. If anything looks off, this is the moment to catch it, before a batch of 40 receipts a month builds on the same assumption.
Once this first receipt looks right, you're set up. Every receipt after this one follows the same pattern automatically.
What happens after the first hour
The setup itself is a one-off task. From here, the client sends receipts as they normally would, Receiptflow extracts and codes them, and your team reviews the flagged exceptions rather than re-entering every transaction by hand. Most of the ongoing time investment for that client drops to a short review session, not a data entry task.
For practices onboarding several clients in the same week, each additional client typically takes less time than the first, since your team already knows the flow and isn't learning it fresh each time.
Onboarding more than one client at once
If you're rolling Receiptflow out to several clients rather than trialling it on one, the same five steps repeat per client, but the account creation step only happens once for the whole practice. A typical practice onboarding five clients in a week spends the bulk of that time on step 3 (platform connection) and step 4 (agreeing submission method with each client), since those two steps depend on each client's individual setup rather than anything practice-wide.
A sensible order is to start with your simplest client, the one with the fewest receipts and the most straightforward chart of accounts, so your team gets comfortable with the flow before tackling a more complex one. Multi-user practice setups that add several team members alongside several clients follow the same pattern, just with an extra step to assign which team member reviews which client's flagged transactions.
Common first-setup questions
Do I need to migrate the client's existing accounting data? No. Receiptflow connects to the accounting platform the client already uses and works within their existing chart of accounts. Nothing about their ledger changes.
What if I make a mistake during setup? Client settings, including review thresholds and submission methods, can be changed at any time after setup. Nothing in the initial hour is a permanent, unchangeable decision.
Can I onboard a client before telling them anything about Receiptflow? You can set up the connection and workspace in advance, but the client still needs a short instruction on how to submit receipts before the workflow is genuinely live for them.
Get your first client onboarded today
If you've been putting off trying Receiptflow because setup felt like it would eat a morning, it doesn't. Account creation, one client connection, and one processed receipt fit comfortably into an hour, and every client after the first is faster still.
Start a free trial and onboard your first client today.
