Overview
Document capture built around how practices work
Otto Capture reads your clients' receipts, bills, sales invoices, and credit notes, extracts the detail, and publishes to Xero. We run our own accountancy practice and built it around the parts of bookkeeping that create the most manual work.
What Otto does
- Extracts full line items as standard. If your current tool captures only the supplier, date, and total, you'll notice the difference: Otto extracts every line, with amounts, tax rates, and a suggested nominal code, at no extra charge. Similar lines are grouped so bills stay readable.
- Learns each client's coding. Otto looks at how you coded a supplier for that specific client before, and suggests the same nominal code and tax rate for you to confirm. Coding is kept separate per client.
- Gives clients simple ways to send documents. Each client gets an email address carrying your practice name, for example acme-ltd@your-practice.ottocapture.email, or your own domain for full white labelling. Clients can also upload through their own web page, or send photos by WhatsApp. None of these need a client login.
- Makes chasing missing receipts simpler. Upload the statement lines export from Xero, remove anything the client shouldn't see, and send them a link. They answer each transaction with a receipt, a note, or both, and receipts arrive in your review queue with the client's note attached.
- Keeps you in control. Otto proposes the detail and the coding, and nothing reaches Xero until someone at your practice has reviewed it.
Who it's for
UK accounting and bookkeeping practices that handle bookkeeping for their clients, from a sole practitioner to a firm with a large client book, who want accurate capture with less manual entry.
Simple, predictable pricing
After the trial, pricing is per client, per month, across three tiers. You don't choose a plan: each client is placed automatically on the tier that costs least for the documents it published that month. Only documents published to Xero are charged, however they arrived, so a client with nothing published in a month is free. You receive one monthly bill covering every connected client.
Otto Capture is actively developed, and support comes direct from the team that builds it.
Otto Capture + Xero
Otto Capture connects to each client's Xero through Xero's secure authentication, so you approve access without Otto ever seeing the client's Xero password. You authorise once per client, and you can disconnect at any time, from Xero or from within Otto Capture.
What Otto reads from Xero
- Chart of accounts: so coding suggestions use the client's nominal codes, and so a missing receipts export can be matched to the right bank accounts.
- Tax rates: so the VAT on each line follows the client's own Xero setup.
- Tracking categories: so you can link sales and expense line items to tracking categories.
- Currencies: the currencies the client has enabled, and whether their plan supports multi-currency, so amounts map to the right one.
- Contacts: existing suppliers and customers are matched against the names Otto extracts, keeping the contact list consistent and avoiding duplicates.
- Organisation details: basics such as the name and base currency, used for matching, for checking a missing receipts export belongs to the right client, and for linking back to the right record in Xero.
Otto does not read bank transactions through the connection. To chase missing receipts, you export the uncoded statement lines from Xero and upload the file to Otto, and you choose which transactions the client sees.
What Otto writes to Xero
- Bills, sales invoices, and credit notes: published with the supplier or customer, date, reference, line items, amounts, tax, tracking, and currency. You choose the status per client: draft, submitted, or authorised.
- Contacts: when an extracted supplier or customer isn't already in Xero, Otto adds the contact so the document can be linked to it.
- Currencies: if a document arrives in a currency the client's Xero supports but hasn't switched on, Otto suggests adding it so the bill publishes in the right currency. This applies only to organisations on a Xero plan with multi-currency, and only with your say-so.
- Attachments: the original document is attached to the bill, invoice, or credit note, so the audit trail stays complete.
These map to Xero's standard permissions for organisation settings, business transactions, contacts, and attachments, plus staying connected so you are not re-authorising for every document.
How your clients' data is handled
Extraction runs on a third-party AI model under zero data retention. The AI provider does not retain your clients' documents or Xero data, and does not use them for training or model improvement. Otto reads only what it needs to code and publish a document, and writes only what you have reviewed.
Pricing plans
This app includes a free 30 day trial
Small
- + £0.18 /published document above 50/month
- 50 published documents included each month
- A client with nothing published in a month is free
- Always the cheapest tier for each client, with no price cliffs
- Full line item extraction, with coding suggestions per client
- Missing receipts chasing and practice-branded submission
Medium
- + £0.12 /published document above 125/month
- 125 published documents included each month
- A client with nothing published in a month is free
- Always the cheapest tier for each client, with no price cliffs
- Full line item extraction, with coding suggestions per client
- Missing receipts chasing and practice-branded submission
Large
- + £0.08 /published document above 350/month
- 350 published documents included each month
- A client with nothing published in a month is free
- Always the cheapest tier for each client, with no price cliffs
- Full line item extraction, with coding suggestions per client
- Missing receipts chasing and practice-branded submission
Getting started
Connecting your first client takes around five minutes.
1. Add Otto Capture
Select Get this app above to sign up, then connect your first client straight away.
2. Connect your first client's Xero organisation
In the Otto Capture portal, select Add client and follow Xero's standard authorisation flow to connect that client's Xero organisation. It takes under a minute per client.
3. Set your preferences for the client
Choose how documents should be published for this client: draft, submitted, or authorised. Set up the client's submission address at the same time, using a subdomain we host or your practice's own domain, and share their upload page or WhatsApp invitation link if they'd prefer those.
4. Send in your first document
Forward a receipt or bill to the client's submission address, or upload it in the browser. Otto extracts the detail, suggests a nominal code and tax rate from that client's history, and puts the document in your review queue.
5. Review and publish
Check the extracted data, adjust anything that needs it, and publish. The document is created in Xero with the original file attached.
6. Chase what's missing
When you're ready, export the client's uncoded statement lines from Xero, upload the file to the client's Missing receipts tab, and send them the link.
If you'd like a hand getting set up, email or contact us using the in-app chat.
