The 4-step workflow
The whole thing is four steps. Your crew does step one. Maya does the rest.
- Text a photo of the receipt Your crew member takes a photo at the supply store counter and texts it to your Maya number. No app, no login, no account. Just a text message.
- Maya reads the receipt A vision model examines the image — not just the text, but the layout, the structure, and the visual cues that indicate what kind of document it is. This isn't basic OCR. It's reading the receipt the way a bookkeeper would.
- Maya classifies the transaction The classifier determines what type of transaction this is — an expense, a bill, a credit card credit, or a vendor credit. It extracts vendor name, amount, date, and payment method. Then it decides which QuickBooks transaction type to create.
- A draft appears in QuickBooks Maya creates a draft transaction via the QuickBooks API, with the receipt image attached. You review it and approve. Nothing posts automatically — you're always in control.
From text to draft: seconds. From draft to approved: however long you take to click "approve."
Not just OCR
Regular receipt scanners use OCR — optical character recognition. They read text accurately. But they don't understand what they're reading.
OCR says: "HOME DEPOT, 03/15/2024, $247.83, VISA-1234"
Maya says: "Expense at Home Depot, paid $247.83 via Visa ending 1234 on 3/15/24"
The difference is understanding. Maya knows that "CREDIT" at the top of a receipt means something different than "CREDIT" at the bottom. It knows when an amount is what you paid versus what you owe. It knows that a receipt with "PAID" and card digits is an expense, while an invoice marked "DUE: Net 30" is a bill.
That's why Maya can text a receipt and get a QuickBooks draft — not just data, but a transaction ready to approve.
The four transaction types
Every receipt Maya receives gets checked against four possibilities. The classifier doesn't guess — it evaluates whether each set of requirements is met.
Expense
You paid for something. Done deal. Receipt style with itemization and payment proof — "PAID" with card last four digits.
Bill
You received an invoice but haven't paid yet. Business-style formatting with an amount owed and no payment proof — "DUE: Net 30."
Credit Card Credit
A refund or return to your card. Receipt style with refund language and a negative total — "REFUND TO CARD: -$45.99."
Vendor Credit
A formal credit from a vendor for returned materials. Business fields with a credit memo indicator and negative total.
Getting the type right matters. An expense and a bill are different transactions in QuickBooks. A credit card credit and a vendor credit hit different accounts. If the type is wrong, your books are wrong. Maya gets the type right.
How the classifier decides
Maya uses a deterministic document classifier. That means it follows rules — not a black box that guesses and can't explain itself.
For every receipt, the classifier looks for proof predicates: specific features that indicate transaction type. Receipt styles, itemization patterns, payment proof, refund language, credit memo indicators. Each transaction type has a set of required features and forbidden features.
Sometimes a receipt could match more than one type. When that happens, Maya uses a specificity hierarchy — it picks the most specific match:
- Bill — most specific business transaction
- Vendor Credit — specific type of credit
- Expense — common catch-all
- Credit Card Credit — if nothing else fits
This ensures consistent, predictable results. The same receipt always classifies the same way. And because the reasoning is logged, you can see why Maya made its decision if you ever need to audit it.
When money is involved, you need to know why the AI did what it did. Maya can always tell you.
What happens when it's not sure
Maya isn't trying to be perfect. It's trying to be helpful. When it knows what to do, it does it. When it doesn't, it asks for help.
If Maya can't confidently process a receipt — missing key features, conflicting indicators, unusual format, illegible text — it uploads the image to your QuickBooks Attachments and texts you to handle it manually. You get a notification, the original receipt is right there, and you enter it yourself.
No receipt is ever lost. Every receipt ends up in QuickBooks — either as a draft Maya created, or as an attachment waiting for you. There is no third outcome.
And because Maya creates drafts, not final transactions, even when it's confident, you still review everything before it hits your books. The AI does the work. You make the call.
How accurate is it
These are real numbers from production processing:
About 9 out of 10 receipts process perfectly without any correction. The 10th gets flagged for quick review — and the receipt image is already in QuickBooks, so the review takes seconds, not minutes.
What Maya handles well: handwritten amounts on printed receipts, faded receipts with poor contrast, receipts photographed at angles, mixed content, different currencies, multi-item line items, tax calculations. What requires human review: extremely damaged or illegible receipts, non-English receipts, and genuinely ambiguous cases that could be two transaction types.
Security and privacy
Image handling
Receipts are transmitted via encrypted SMS. They're processed immediately upon receipt and stored temporarily for AI processing — less than 24 hours. The receipt image is uploaded to your QuickBooks Attachments (your storage, not ours). Maya does not permanently store receipt images on its own servers and does not train on customer data.
Data processing
All processing happens in a secure cloud environment. No human reviews your receipts — AI only. Data handling is GDPR and CCPA compliant. You can delete all your data anytime.
QuickBooks access
Maya connects to QuickBooks via OAuth 2.0 — the industry standard. It has read and write access to transactions only. No access to bank accounts, payment processing, or customer/vendor contact information. You can revoke Maya's access anytime from inside QuickBooks.
The bottom line
You don't need to understand the classifier to use Maya. You text a receipt, a draft appears in QuickBooks. That's the whole product.
But if you're the kind of person who needs to know it's legit before you trust it — a skeptical owner, a bookkeeper evaluating tools, a CPA recommending software to clients — now you know. The AI isn't magic. It's rules, evidence, and a failsafe. It reads receipts the way an experienced bookkeeper would, and when it's not sure, it hands it back to you.
The best way to test it is to try it. Text 10 of your actual receipts. See how it does.