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# I don't hate doing expenses. I hate collecting receipts.
- URL: https://www.notation.design/archive/i-hate-collecting-receipts/
- Published: 2026-10-12T07:10:25.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-12T07:10:25.000Z
- Description: I realized that doing expenses was never really my problem. Collecting the receipts was. So I started thinking about what the ideal expense workflow for me would look like.
- Author: Iwan Hänggi
- Tags: Tools, Thinking, #priority-low

![](https://www.notation.design/content/images/2026/10/Drawing-28-1.png)

I've always struggled with doing expenses. It just is not my nature. I don't know why.

When I was an employee, I always submitted them late. When I owned a business, it became even worse because there was no bookkeeper chasing me. I then hired people to help me, bought the fanciest subscriptions, but the problem never went away.

Anyway, over the years I started to understand my problem.

It's collecting the receipts.

I buy something, and then I put the receipt somewhere. Then I forget about it, and when it's time to do the expenses I can't find the receipts again and I start to procrastinate.

When I have all the receipts ready, doing the expenses is actually kind of fun. It feels like harvesting money...

When i realized that I started to brainstorm and imagine what the ideal expense collection workflow for me would be.

### My ideal workflow

I imagined a tool with a universal inbox, a triage and a submit expenses tab. All connected with each other in one overview.

It has to make the receipt collection as frictionless as possible, so I chose email as the inbox mechanism.

Then it should be a simple left-to-right workflow with three columns.

On the left I want to see all the unprocessed receipts.

In the middle I want to see the current receipt I selected, so I can add information for bookkeeping. Here I also want the tool to be connected with my chart of accounts (Kontenplan).

And on the right I see all the processed receipts, which I can then select and export to my bookkeeping system in whatever format.

The important thing for me is that I know I can just submit receipts to the system, maybe adding some context if necessary, e.g. "paid by CC", and then forget about them until it is time to harvest some money.

Then I can sit down and do the expenses when I feel like it, without the need to first collect or look for receipts.

I can also do automations with my email inbox. For some subscriptions, for example, I can just automatically forward the receipts to this inbox and they go directly into the triage.

### Why build another tool?

I know there are tools out there... but lately I started to develop an aversion against SaaS, I don't know why tbh.

I've tried so many subscriptions over the years, and all these tools have feature bloat. 80% of the stuff I never need, and it's distracting.

So I started to think about my own ideal solution. It felt good because I know it frees up a lot of time and headaches for me.