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Smartbills vs Neat

Neat is a good place to keep receipts once someone has scanned them. Smartbills pulls them from your inbox and from the stores that send them. Most never need scanning or filing.

At a glance

Smartbills vs Neat, in one screen

Neat is a long-running small-business product for scanning, storing and organizing receipts and financial documents, with simple bookkeeping on top. It keeps its scope modest, and its price reflects that.

Smartbills

Best for

Businesses where receipts pile up faster than anyone files them, and where staff pay with company cards.

Where it's stronger

  • Most documents arrive without anyone scanning or uploading anything.
  • Receipts are matched to card transactions as they arrive.
  • Expense policy, approvals and cards are ready for when the business hires.
  • Tax categories on every line mean your tax return starts from a download.

Neat

Best for

Owner-run businesses that want a tidy document archive and simple bookkeeping at a low price.

Where it's stronger

  • A very simple product for a very small business, with little to learn.
  • A long track record, and a year-end handoff accountants already know.
  • A low price, with no card program or policy setup expected.
  • If the owner is the only one spending, Smartbills is more than you need.

Every comparison on this site names what the other product does better. If we couldn't think of anything, we didn't publish the page.

Side by side

Smartbills and Neat, feature by feature

These are structural differences, not plan checkboxes. Capabilities change, so check the vendor's own documentation before deciding on any single row.

Scanning and storing documents

Smartbills
NeatTheir core product

Sweeping receipts out of your mailbox

Smartbills
NeatLimited

Digital receipts issued by the merchant

Smartbills
Neat—

Matching documents to card transactions

Smartbills
NeatBasic reconciliation

Expense policy and approvals

Smartbills
Neat—

Corporate cards

Smartbills
Neat—

How simple it is for a one-person business

SmartbillsMore product than some need
NeatDeliberately simple

Moving from Neat

None of this needs a big-bang cutover. Most teams run both tools for one cycle and compare capture rates before switching anyone off.

  1. Check who spends

    If one person does all the spending, the case for switching is weak. It gets strong once a team spends.

  2. Connect the mailbox first

    Email receipt capture takes care of most manual uploading right away.

  3. Add the card feed

    Once card transactions are visible, matching happens on its own.

  4. Export the archive first

    Take your existing documents with you, then import and code the ones you need.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

What people ask us before they sign up.

Yes. Exported documents can be imported and coded, though matching old documents depends on how much transaction data is still available.

It might be. Smartbills is worth more the more people spend money and the more of it is spent in person.

Yes. You get coded documents, tax categories and books already in sync. There is no scramble to hand over a folder in March.

Keep comparing

More comparisons

The products people evaluate alongside Neat.

All Neat alternativesBest receipt scanner apps

The products that do the work.

Each product works on its own, and when you run two, the same record carries from the receipt to the ledger entry.

Get started

Ready to see it against Neat?

Bring one month of your own receipts and card transactions, and we'll show you the capture rate on both sides instead of a slide deck.

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