Overview
Receipt and bill capture built around how practices work
Otto Capture reads receipts, bills, and sales invoices for your clients, extracts the detail, and publishes to Xero. We run our own accountancy practice and built it around the parts of document capture that create the most manual work.
What Otto does
- Extracts full line items as standard. Most tools pull header data only: supplier, date, total, and a single tax rate. 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 however complex the document.
- 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, so one client's treatment is never mixed with another's.
- Gives each client an address branded to your practice. Clients forward documents to an address that carries your practice name, not ours, for example acme-ltd@your-practice.ottocapture.email. Because your practice name is in the domain, you choose the client aliases rather than working around ones already taken on a shared address. For full white labelling, point your own domain at Otto instead, for example acme-ltd@receipts.yourpractice.com.
- Keeps you in control. Otto proposes the detail and the coding, and you decide what reaches Xero. Review and adjust each document, or, as you build confidence in a client's coding, let more of it through with a lighter touch.
Who it's for
Otto Capture is for UK accounting and bookkeeping practices that handle bookkeeping for their clients, from a sole practitioner to a firm with a large client book. It suits practices that want accurate capture with less manual entry, and a straightforward way for clients to send documents in.
Try it across a full month-end
Otto Capture is free to trial for 30 days. To mark our arrival on the Xero App Store, practices joining now get an extended 60-day trial, long enough to test it across a full month-end and more.
Simple, predictable pricing
After the trial, pricing is per client, per month, across three tiers, and each client is placed automatically on the tier that costs least for what it published that month. Clients with no documents in a month are not charged, and you receive one monthly bill covering every connected client.
Otto Capture is a newer product and actively developed. 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.
- 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 base currency, used for matching and for linking back to the right record in Xero.
What Otto writes to Xero
- Bills and sales invoices: 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 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 or invoice, 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 LLM under a zero-data-retention policy. Your clients' documents and Xero data are not stored by the model provider, and are never used to train any model. 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 /extra document/month
- Up to 50 published documents
- Full line-item extraction, as standard
- Coding that learns each client's history
- Practice-branded submission address
Medium
- + £0.12 /extra document/month
- Up to 125 published documents
- Full line-item extraction, as standard
- Coding that learns each client's history
- Practice-branded submission address
Large
- + £0.08 /extra document/month
- Up to 350 published documents
- Full line-item extraction, as standard
- Coding that learns each client's history
- Practice-branded submission address
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 branded submission address at the same time, using a subdomain we host or your practice's own domain.
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.
Your first 30 days are free, extended to 60 for practices joining during our Xero App Store launch. If you'd like a hand getting set up, email and we'll help.
