Gmail receipt tracker

Gmail Receipt Tracker & Expense Categorizer

Overview

Every SMB owner has thousands of receipts buried in email. Come tax time or expense report time, they spend hours searching, screenshotting, and entering data — and still miss deductions. This skill defines a systematic 5-step process to find, categorize, and export receipts so the user can hand a clean file to their bookkeeper / tax prep / accountant.

Core principle: Receipts that aren't categorized at the time of expense get lost. The win is a searchable, categorized, exportable dataset — not just a folder of PDFs.

Workflow

Step 1: Define the scope

Ask the user:

1. Time range? (Last month / quarter / year / specific dates)
2. Email accounts to search? (Personal Gmail, business Gmail, Outlook)
3. Purpose? (Tax prep / monthly expense report / audit / reimbursement)
4. Schedule C or 1120 / 1065? (different categorization)
5. Required output? (CSV for QuickBooks, PDF folder, Excel report)

Step 2: Build the search query strategy

Don't search "receipt". That misses 80%. Use vendor-specific + transaction-trigger words searches.

See references/search-queries.md for the full query library. Key patterns:

# By common trigger words
("your receipt" OR "order confirmation" OR "payment received" OR "invoice" OR "thank you for your purchase" OR "subscription renewed")

# By vendor (top SMB expense categories)
from:(uber OR lyft OR doordash) → Travel/Meals
from:(aws OR digitalocean OR vercel) → Software/Hosting
from:(amazon OR amazonbusiness) → Supplies (parse subject for category)
from:(stripe OR square) → Could be income OR expense — check direction
from:(linkedin OR facebook OR google) → Marketing/Ads
from:(quickbooks OR gusto OR rippling) → Software (subscription)

Step 3: Extract structured data from each email

For each receipt, capture:

Field	How to extract
Date	Email date (or transaction date in body if different)
Vendor	From-field domain
Description	Subject line + first product line
Amount	Look for total; use largest dollar figure if multiple
Currency	Default USD; check for symbols/codes
Payment method	Last 4 of card if present
Category	Map vendor → category (see references)
Receipt link	Email permalink or attached PDF

Step 4: Categorize for tax purposes

Use the IRS Schedule C / 1120 categories. See references/tax-categories.md for the full vendor → category mapping.

Top 8 SMB expense categories (covers 80% of expenses):

1. Office supplies & equipment — Amazon, Staples, Best Buy (under $2,500)
2. Software subscriptions — SaaS tools
3. Cloud hosting & infrastructure — AWS, GCP, Vercel, etc.
4. Travel — Flights, hotels, rideshare
5. Meals & entertainment — Restaurants (50% deductible federally)
6. Marketing & advertising — Google Ads, Meta Ads, LinkedIn Ads
7. Professional services — Lawyers, accountants, contractors
8. Telecommunications — Phone, internet (business portion)

Step 5: Export the dataset

Default output: CSV that imports cleanly to QuickBooks or Xero.

date,vendor,description,amount,currency,category,payment_method,receipt_link,notes
2026-05-01,Uber,Trip to airport SFO→home,42.50,USD,Travel,Card-1234,gmail://thread/abc,Client meeting
2026-05-02,AWS,May usage,847.23,USD,Software/Hosting,Card-5678,gmail://thread/def,

Also offer:

• PDF zip — all receipt PDFs in one folder, named YYYY-MM-DD_vendor_amount.pdf
• Tax summary: subtotals by category, ready for tax filing

What goes in "Personal" vs "Business"

Ask the user upfront. If they don't have a separate business card, surface every charge for them to flag.

Rules of thumb (US — verify with their CPA):

• Coffee with client = business meal
• Coffee alone = personal
• Home office utilities = % of square footage business use
• Vehicle = mileage log, NOT total payments
• Personal subscription used >50% for business = partial business

Red flags to surface

1. 🚨 Vendor that looks unusual / not recognized — could be fraud
2. 🚨 Duplicate charges — same vendor, same amount, same day
3. 🚨 Subscription you forgot you had — recurring charges with no recent login
4. ⚠️ Cash-equivalent transfers (Venmo, Zelle to a person) — need separate accounting
5. ⚠️ Large round numbers ($5,000 even) — verify they're not estimates
6. ⚠️ Foreign currency charges — surface FX rate and amount in USD

Common mistakes

Mistake	Why it's bad	Right approach
Categorizing every Amazon order as "Office Supplies"	Some are personal, some are equipment >$2,500 (capitalized)	Parse subject for product type
Missing recurring subscriptions	They look like noise but add up	Group by from: and surface monthly recurring
Categorizing Uber as "Travel" always	Uber Eats is "Meals"; commuter rides not deductible	Read subject for "Eats" vs ride
Including refunds as expenses	Inflates spending	Search for "refund", "credit" — net them out
Not capturing the receipt itself	When IRS asks, summary isn't enough	Always include receipt link / PDF

Quarterly expense review ritual

Suggest the user run this skill quarterly (not just at tax time):

• Q1: Year-end + January catch-up. Most thorough.
• Q2: Mid-year tax estimate basis
• Q3: Mid-year cleanup
• Q4: Year-end prep — includes any straggler receipts

Annual all-at-once is 3-5x harder than quarterly.

What you don't do

• ❌ Don't make up amounts when you can't read the receipt — flag as "needs verification"
• ❌ Don't categorize personal expenses as business "to save tax" — fraud
• ❌ Don't promise tax deductibility — you're not their CPA
• ❌ Don't delete original emails — keep audit trail
• ❌ Don't ignore receipts <$1 — many small subscriptions add up