How AI receipt scanning saves you time (and it's free)

There’s a reason so many shared expenses never get logged: entering them is boring. You finish a group dinner, everyone’s ready to leave, and the last thing anyone wants to do is squint at a receipt and tap in the total, the date, and who had what. So you tell yourself you’ll do it later — and later, as always, never comes.

This is exactly the friction that AI receipt scanning removes. Instead of typing, you take a photo. The app reads the receipt and creates the Expense for you. What used to be a minute of fiddly data entry becomes a single tap.

What “receipt scanning” actually does

When you snap a receipt, the AI pulls out the details that matter:

• The total amount, so the Expense is created with the right value.
• The merchant, so it’s clear what the spend was for.
• The date, so your group’s history stays accurate.

You glance at it, confirm who shared the cost, and you’re done. No keyboard, no mental math, no decoding your own handwriting three days later.

The best expense you ever log is the one you didn’t have to think about. Scanning makes “track it now” the path of least resistance.

Why “free” is the whole point

Here’s the part that matters: in a lot of apps, receipt scanning is locked behind a paid tier. You can have it — for a subscription. Which is a strange place to put a paywall, because scanning isn’t a luxury feature. It’s the thing that makes people actually keep their expenses up to date.

In Donget, AI receipt scanning is free. There’s no Pro plan gating it, no monthly fee, no “you’ve used your three free scans this month.” Snap as many receipts as your life produces. The feature that saves you the most time shouldn’t be the one you have to pay for.

Where it saves the most time

Scanning earns its keep anywhere expenses come thick and fast:

• Group trips. A weekend away can generate dozens of receipts. Scanning each one as it lands means you settle up at the end with a complete, accurate record instead of a guesswork reconstruction.
• The weekly shop with roommates. Groceries are frequent and easy to forget. A photo at the till and it’s split before you’ve unpacked the bags.
• Events and parties. When one person is fronting catering, drinks, and the venue, scanning keeps every line item straight.

It pairs with everything else

Scanning isn’t a standalone trick — it drops the expense straight into Donget’s normal flow. Once an Expense exists, you can split it any of the five ways: equally, by exact amounts, by percentages, by shares, or item-by-item. Your group’s Balances update in realtime, and when it’s time to settle up, Donget works out the fewest payments to make everyone even.

Here’s the quick version of the whole loop:

1. Pay for something shared.
2. Snap the receipt.
3. Confirm who shared it.
4. Forget about it — the Balances have it handled.

The bottom line

The reason shared expenses turn into arguments is almost never bad intentions. It’s forgotten entries — costs that never got logged because logging them was a chore. AI receipt scanning removes the chore, and when it’s free, there’s no reason not to use it on everything.

Tired of typing in receipts? Download Donget free and let the camera do the data entry. Curious what else is built in? Take a tour of the features or see how Donget stacks up against Splitwise.