How to scan receipts on your iPhone, and find them again at tax time

Scan a receipt in SignMaster

1. 1

   Choose Receipt

   In the SignMaster app, open the Scan tab and pick Receipt from the modes above the shutter. Smooth the receipt flat on a dark surface; a curled receipt casts shadows across the numbers.

2. 2

   Capture it

   Tap the shutter and hold the phone above the receipt until the camera captures it. Got a handful from one day? Keep going: each capture becomes the next page.

3. 3

   Check the look

   Receipt mode uses a grayscale look and sizes the page to the receipt itself, rather than shrinking it onto a Letter page with wide margins. If the print is faint, slide the strength control or try B&W.

4. 4

   Name it so you can find it

   Tap the checkmark. It's auto-named, like "Receipt · Nov 9, 2:14 PM". Rename it with the vendor and amount, such as "Lumber Yard 412.18", and pick a folder, then tap Save PDF.

While the PDF is built, the app reads the text on the phone and hides it behind the image. That's what makes the next part work: you can search for a vendor, a date or a total later, or tap Copy text to paste the line items somewhere else.

Long receipts

Hardware stores and pharmacies print receipts as long as your arm. Receipt mode keeps the receipt's own proportions, so a long one stays tall and narrow instead of shrinking to fit a sheet of paper. If it's too long to read clearly in one shot, scan it in overlapping sections from top to bottom; each section becomes the next page of the same PDF. Zoom in on the total and the date before you save.

File them so tax time is a search

• One folder per job or per year. Folders in SignMaster are shared with your team; when a folder is picked, its name leads the scan's name, like "Ridgeview Dr · Receipt · Nov 9".
• One receipt per PDF if you'll need to find them one by one; one PDF per day if you just hand the pile to a bookkeeper.
• Search by what's printed. In Documents, search for a vendor or an amount; the text read from each scan is searched along with the names.
• Hand them over in one go. Select several in Documents to merge or export them, or use More export options for PDF, JPG pages or a text file.

Without an app: Notes

Make a note called "Receipts 2026", tap the attachments button and choose Scan Documents. Each receipt you scan is saved in the note as a PDF, and on iOS 26 and later you can choose a filter before shooting. Apple says Notes search covers text in scanned documents, so searching for a store name finds the note. It works fine for a few receipts a month; past that, one long note gets hard to hand to an accountant.

What the IRS expects you to keep

The IRS says supporting documents for expenses "should identify the payee, the amount paid, proof of payment, the date incurred" and what was bought, and that all requirements for paper records also apply to electronic ones. Its Publication 583 says an electronic storage system must index, store, preserve, retrieve and reproduce records in legible form, and points to Revenue Procedure 97-22 for the details. In most cases, the IRS says to keep records for 3 years, and longer in some situations.