Run a receipts-to-spreadsheet service for small businesses
Every sole trader has a drawer, a shoebox or a photo roll full of receipts, and a bank statement that doesn't explain itself. On the eight practice receipts in this mission, free OCR read six perfectly and flagged the two it couldn't (a faint photo and a handwritten note) instead of guessing. Turn that pile into a clean, categorised spreadsheet their accountant can drop straight in, each month, for a fixed fee.
- The two Level 0 basics: Install anything from GitHub safely and the terminal, so you can install tesseract and run a Python script with uv
- Make it legal: tax, invoices and GDPR, because you'll handle financial personal data and should do the ICO fee self-assessment first
- A patient eye for numbers, and 4 to 6 hours a week for the first month of practice and outreach. Keep your day job while you build it
- Its sister service for numbers stuck in PDFs: Sell reconciled bank statements to accountants
The offer, and the one line that keeps you legal
Know exactly what you sell, who pays for it, and the boundary you must never cross: this is data entry, not accountancy.
Every small business generates receipts faster than it files themA sole trader buys fuel, parking, materials, coffee for a client, a software subscription, a train ticket. Each one is a scrap of paper or a photo on a phone, and at year end someone has to turn the whole pile into rows an accountant can use. Most owners dread it, and most accountants charge by the hour to untangle it. That gap is the service: a pile of receipts and a bank statement in, a clean, categorised expense spreadsheet out, every month, for a fixed fee.
CarefulThe scope line, and you will repeat it often: this is data entry and organisation, not accountancy or tax advice. You are not the client's accountant. You do not file their taxes, you do not tell them what is allowable, and you do not give tax or VAT advice. You hand over clean, sorted data; a qualified accountant signs it off. Keep to that line and you stay clear of the bookkeeping that needs anti-money-laundering supervision (step 7 has the detail). Say it in your first message, put it in writing, and never drift across it to win a client.Who actually pays for this:
- Accountants and bookkeepers. They have clients who arrive with a shoebox, and nobody on the team wants to key it in. One practice can feed you work from dozens of clients, which makes them your best market.
- Sole traders and micro-businesses. Trades, cleaners, gardeners, consultants, drivers: people who are good at the work and bad at the paperwork. You usually reach them through their accountant, or by word of mouth.
- Landlords. A few properties, a year of receipts for repairs, agents' fees and insurance, and a nudge from Making Tax Digital to keep digital records.
What it takesHalf the job is careful checking, because a misread total is worse than no total. The other half is steady outreach, because owners don't go looking for this by name. The tools are free and run on your own computer, so there is nothing to spend upfront. Plan on a week or two of practice with the sample receipts, then steady weekly outreach, with the first paid batch often weeks away.
TipWho this suits: you like detail, you would rather flag a doubt than guess, you will sign a data agreement and follow it, and you are happy to email and phone firms you don't know. If you also deal with numbers trapped in PDF statements, the sister course Sell reconciled bank statements to accountants pairs with this one.Pick one group to start withYour sample, your messages and your prices all sharpen when you do. For most people that is local accountants and bookkeepers, because one relationship brings repeat work.