How to stop losing receipts as a subcontractor

Lost receipts are quietly expensive. Every faded till roll or binned slip is a business cost you can't evidence — which can mean a higher tax bill and a more stressful year-end. For subcontractors working across sites, the problem is simply that receipts pile up faster than there's time to file them.

The good news: you don't need a bookkeeping system to fix this. You need a habit that takes seconds.

Why receipts go missing

• Thermal paper fades. Most fuel and merchant receipts are printed on thermal paper that goes blank within months, especially in a hot van.
• They live in the wrong places. Glovebox, jacket pocket, dashboard, a carrier bag in the cab — never one place.
• "I'll sort it later" never comes. By the time you sit down, you can't remember what half of them were for.

The capture-it-now rule

The single most effective habit is to photograph or forward a receipt the moment you get it — at the till, at the pump, before it goes in your pocket. A digital copy never fades and is always searchable. If you capture as you go, year-end becomes a review instead of an archaeology dig.

Make it frictionless

• Snap a photo straight after paying, while the receipt is still crisp.
• For email receipts (fuel cards, online orders), forward them to one inbox or app so paper and digital live together.
• Capture the total, date, supplier and what it was for — that's what your accountant actually needs.
• Link each receipt to the job it belongs to while you still remember it.

What good capture looks like

A tidy record has the image, the amount, the date, the supplier, a category (materials, fuel, tools…) and ideally the job. With that, an expense is fully evidenced and ready for your accountant — no chasing, no guessing.

This is exactly what SubReady is built to do: snap a receipt and it's captured, read with AI (even faded ones), categorised and linked to a job, so nothing slips through.