Glossary · Accounting tools
OCR
Also said as
optical character recognitionreceipt scanningreceipt OCR
OCR — optical character recognition — is the tech that reads text out of photos and PDFs: it's how receipt-scanning turns a crumpled fuel-stop receipt into a transaction.
Why it matters to your business
It's the difference between photographing receipts and typing them in by hand — and it's quietly disappearing from plans you assumed included it.
The catch · what vendors don't say
A vendor can retire the feature and resell it as a third-party subscription — one accounting platform's built-in receipt OCR became a $15–40/month add-on from elsewhere.
See it in action
