the question
Every VAT-refundable receipt meant a row typed into an Excel sheet. Then, once a quarter, a full audit before the EmaraTax claim: over 8 hours re-reading receipts and filling in details.
the build
A personal finance app built around one gesture: photograph the receipt, and every detail is captured and filed the moment it happens. When the claim window opens, the quarter's eligible transactions are already assembled into a claim sheet for EmaraTax, exportable to Excel. Built together with the owner, around the workflow they already had.
what broke
The first version treated every receipt as claimable. Not every category or supplier qualifies, so the claimable total ran high until eligibility rules were encoded per category. VAT-eligible spend is now its own tracked number, checked before anything joins a claim.
where it stands
Running since february 2026. What started as a VAT tracker grew into full expense management: income, transactions, subscriptions, budgets, suppliers, even vacations. The claim that used to consume a working day now leaves the phone in minutes.
the finding
Reading the receipts was the easy half. Encoding which ones actually qualify is what made the claims trustworthy.
screens
